I Know What I Saw
by 1701dragonflies
Summary: Summary: "I know what I saw." Daryl's adamant that he saw a Chupacabra in the forest that day. When Andrea retraces his steps she stumbles across something that in their world at least is even more mythical than the goat sucker. I own nothing.
1. Chapter 1

I Know What I Saw

Okay, so I think that I'm gonna hit two of our LJ prompts with this one. Cemeterydreamer asked for one related to Daryl's Chupacabra sighting and an actual argument between the pair, so I hope this fulfils your hopes and dreams! So this is for her

If it doesn't satisfy your prompting desires, I hope you enjoy it anyway. It began life as a prompt and in my mind it developed into a multi chapter with a story arc and everything! I'm very proud of myself – this is the first multi-chapter fic I've done for this fandom where there has been a clear story arc right from the beginning so I'm excited to see what I can do with it

Summary: "I know what I saw." Daryl's adamant that he saw a Chupacabra in the forest that day. When Andrea retraces his steps she stumbles across something that in their world at least is even more mythical than the goat sucker. Spoilers for Season 2 so far.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. And my knowledge of the Chupacabra comes from Wikipedia, fount of all knowledge true and false! Apologies for errors or inaccuracies. Also, I can't remember if Andrea's hometown is ever specified, so I took a few liberties with that and mentioned places that she might have lived at one point or another.

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The sweat trickled down Andrea's chest, pooling at the wiring on her bra, sticking the fabric to the swell of her breasts. Her watch read a little after eight am, but she was pretty sure that it had either stopped or was slowly winding down. Either way, it was not yet noon and it was almost unbearably hot out, even by the standards of the oppressive Georgia summers. The weather was cloying, almost suffocating, tugging at the skin on Andrea's neck and the moisture in the back of her throat. It was difficult to catch her breath, almost like she was breathing in a sauna which, she supposed as she felt another concourse of sweat work its way through her ponytail, she was. Sighing to herself, she reached for her bottle of water and took a long swig before shifting Glen's borrowed backpack so that it was more comfortable on her back, and began the slow, steady trek through the forest, the cliff that had almost claimed Daryl's life looming on her left hand side, leading to rocks and water below.

She didn't know what she was doing out here, not really. It wasn't like they had anything to search for any more, and after her and Shane's discovery at the subdivision, it probably wasn't a good idea to go wandering off alone into the forest. She didn't even know what she was looking for, if she was looking for anything. She just wanted some time alone to think. She couldn't remember the last time she had had a moment of singular introspection or just private thought without someone listening in, or sticking their nose in, or offering unsolicited advice about her life. When she had lived in Florida and had the opportunity, she had often taken a drive out into the countryside to walk off whatever was bothering her. Like Georgia, Florida was hot and humid but it was a welcome respite from the smog and urban tension of Jacksonville and Miami. And now, heat and walkers aside, the Georgia forest really was beautiful. That aside, it was probably a stroke of utter stupidity on her part to come repeat Daryl's trek out here when only a few days' earlier the hunter had almost been killed by both nature and walker while he was searching for Sophia.

A hard fist of sadness clenched around Andrea's heart when she thought about Sophia. As awful as the poor girl's undeath had been, it was the Pandora's Box of shit that her disappearance had unleashed which seemed to be slowly paralysing their group from the inside, paralysing their minds in a thick fog of despondency and grief. Herschel hadn't left the farmhouse and Carol hadn't yet left the RV. Lori and Rick watched Carl with a hawk eye, afraid to let him out of their grasp, never mind their sight. Daryl had retreated into stony silence, using nothing but a scowl and harsh tongue to keep the rest of their peculiar family at bay. Shane spent most of his time on the highway, pillaging the dead for supplies. Glenn spent most of his time with Maggie, and Andrea really couldn't blame him. They could be leaving at any day; it made sense to spend time with the ones you cared about while you still could.

If Andrea had her time again there were so many things she would have said to the people she loved, not just her parents and Amy but her friends too, men and women who Andrea had known almost as long as she had been alive. She would tell her mom and dad that she loved them and had been privileged to call herself their daughter. She would tell Amy that she had only half-meant the relentless teasing of their earlier years. She would tell Jim Brockhurst from Accounts that she had always hoped he would ask her out after what in her opinion had been a spectacular first date. She would tell people things both meaningful and meaningless, would tear down her social filter and let the words roll freely and carelessly off her tongue. She would have been more honest in her relationships, more forthright. She would not have allowed something as finite as time and civilisation to get in the way of things that needed to be said and should be said. _I love you. I miss you. You were a great mom and dad. I could have been a better sister. _

No, Andrea did not blame Glenn one bit. She could empathise with them all. People dealt with grief in different ways. She just didn't want to be around them while they did it, not right now, anyway. She just wanted a couple of hours of peace and quiet. And exercise. It had been so long since Andrea's heart hand pounded with something that wasn't fear that she had almost forgotten what it felt like. So she had packed a bag, left a note indicating her route for Rick, like he was her dad and she was a teenager sneaking out after curfew, and headed out.

The walk was harder than Daryl had indicated and harder than she had expected it to be. She was no tracker or hiker like Daryl and even her sturdiest shoes struggled to cope with the terrain, but she struggled on, promising herself that once she reached the top of the hill, where she would be able to see the whole valley, the farmhouse and the river, she would eat her jerky, drink her water and head back. The trail was rough and uneven, the ground soft and dry beneath her feet. There was very little traction, the thick bed of discarded leaves, twigs and dry forest sediment hiding a multitude of potholes, snakes and other dangers. It was easy to see how Daryl had wound up in the predicament that he had. Self-proclaimed outdoor expert or not, he was only a man, after all, a fact that had been all too evident when she visited him just that morning to bid him goodbye before she set off on her hike. She had never seen him asleep before yet when she stuck her head through his tent flap she had been startled by just how vulnerable he had appeared to her, even with the crossbow clutched against his chest. His skin had looked soft and pliable in the early morning light, the regular rise and fall of his chest indicating that despite his larger than life presence and seeming indestructibility, he was a man, a flesh and blood man fully capable of being hurt, killed or worse. For the first time since their initial meeting all that time ago, he looked breakable to her.

Her foot slipped from under her then and she yelped as she did a short, sharp slide several feet down the ravine, a cloud of dirt, leaves and twigs followed her. As her t-shirt rode up, her jeans rode down and she felt something sharp scrape her back and the backs of her calves. Her hands flailed out around her, eventually grabbing a thick vine that might have begun life as a tree root. It was rough and covered with thick green lichen which scraped at her hands, but its traction was enough to slow her uncontrolled fall down the ravine. Below her she could hear the sounds of the river crashing onto the rocks and brook below and muttered several words of thanks to whoever was watching over her. She gave the root an experimental tug, praying that it would support her weight while she climbed back up to the original trail.

"Come on, Andrea." She muttered under her breath. "You wanted exercise. You can do this."

It took only moments to reach the top but by the time she did Andrea was panting, her clothes were wet with sweat and she had dirt and leaves in places that no woman ever wanted dirt and leaves. When her slick hands reached the dry trail, she let her body half-slump over the edge and breathed a sigh of relief.

Until the familiar sounds of a walker brought a rush of fear and adrenaline through her system.

"Shit." She muttered, half scrabbling backwards as she fumbled at her waistband for her pistol and cursing when she came away empty. She must have dropped it when she fell and she didn't have the time to look for it. Her hands gripped the rubber handle on the knife she'd palmed from the set that Carl had stolen from the highway graveyard. She could barely bone a chicken, never mind take out a walker, but in the absence of her pistol she had no choice. The knife was sharp enough though, and light in her hand. It would do the job.

She smelled the walker several moments before she saw it. This summer had felt never-ending, and while it was slowly stretching its way into fall, the smell of decaying, rotting flesh took on an overpowering, almost hallucinogenic quality, and Andrea fought the urge to gag as the smell preceded the undead that were sure to follow.

Tears prickled her eyes when she saw the pitiful figure emerge from the forest undergrowth some twenty feet ahead of her. The figure had begun life as a girl, but Andrea could only recognise its gender because the girl was wearing what had probably been a very pretty sundress in vibrant, sunny orange and yellow. Her sandals had Velcro straps on them because she hadn't quite reached the age where buckles and laces posed no problem. Her legs were streaked in dirt and mud and blood, her right shoulder a torn mass of decaying tendons and rivulets of flesh. Her hair could have begun life as either blonde or brown, but it was now impossible to see through the matted clumps of leaves and blood and other unspeakable that wound through her hair like a beehive. Her eyes were rheumy and milky white and they stared at Andrea with single-minded intensity as the young girl moved towards Andrea with far more speed than she should have, her hands held up as she reached for the live flesh before her. Judging by her sunken cheeks and skeletal arms, Andrea guessed that she hadn't eaten for a while. She tightened her grip on the knife. She'd need to sidestep the girl and shove her knife into the back of her head. It shouldn't be hard; the girl had to weight no more than sixty pounds and was less than four feet tall. It would be quick, clean, precise and would take less than thirty seconds.

It wasn't quite as precise as Andrea would have liked and it wasn't as quick as it should have been, but several moments later Andrea was wiping the girl's blood off her blade and searching for her pistol.

Two more walkers came out of the woods. Both had been big men in life and that had not changed with death. They stopped short when they saw her, evidently surprised that live meat was so close and staring at them with wide blue-green eyes. Their mouths opened and they half-snorted, half-grunted, half-growled at Andrea before moving towards her, gaining speed and momentum with every step they took, their decaying legs carrying them forwards with a speed and agility that was terrifying. Andrea scrambled backwards, her hands reaching for the root that had been her saviour just a few moments ago. Without her pistol she stood no chance of killing them both, but if she could get down the side of the ravine, she might be able to outrun them or force them over the edge and onto the rocks and water below.

She was closer to the edge than she had initially realised and went over backwards and head-first, sliding and slipping downhill on her back as she watched her two pursuers blindly follow her down the hill, their minds and their feet not able to compensate for the steep descent or the poor traction. One soon toppled over and fell head-over-feet, head-over-feet down the ravine, thrashing and clawing at Andrea as he passed her.

Frighteningly, the other one displayed enough intelligence to at least slow down before he followed Andrea, who by that point had managed to hoist herself into a high tree, far out of reach of undead hands and snapping teeth. He descended with intelligent wariness, his nose and eyes scanning as he searched for his prey. When he looked up and saw her nestled amid the dense foliage, he opened his mouth and let rip an inhuman growl, his hands reaching for the low-hanging branches as he tried to haul himself into a tree. Above him, Andrea gripped her knife and prayed that her luck held out longer than her water bottle and the jerky in her backpack.

She did not need to wait long. The zombie jerked forwards with unnatural force, his head slamming against the trunk with such power that it made the entire tree shake and moan. Then he slid down against the trunk, his mouth and head wound oozing thick black blood against the green-brown bark. When Andrea saw the crossbow bolt firmly wedged in the back of its head, she fought the urge to weep with relief.

"You gonna quit your Tarzan routine and get your ass down here?" Daryl Dixon's familiar twang cut through the now-silent forest.

"Just a minute." Andrea said as she warily descended from her refuge. She couldn't see him but knew that he had to be close by. "I need to find my gun."

"Got it right here. And don't forget to grab the bolt. Only got two left."

She saw his boots first; thick workman's boots that looked like the most comfortable things on the planet. Her eyes travelled up his body; the all-purpose workman's pants, the pale blue shirt with the sleeves torn out. His crossbow was now slung across his back and he was breathing heavily, as though the wind had been knocked out of him. He was as the top of the hill, and watched her ascent with careful scrutiny. Only once she was virtually over the top did he offer his assistant, grabbing the back of the waist band of her jeans and hauling her over the edge. As usual, his face was dirtied by grime and sweat and his blue eyes were narrowed in scrutiny. She moved awkwardly, knocking them both off balance and they landed in a tangle of legs, weapons and backpacks, both of them panting for breath.

"You wanna tell me just what the hell you think you're doin' all the way out here?" He asked flatly as he held out his hand for his crossbow bolt.

TBC ...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Thanks so much for the reviews, guys – they mean a lot. Not sure how many chapters this will be. I have an idea where I want to go with it so I guess I'll just write until I'm done with it

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Andrea really needed to work on her tracking and awareness skills, Daryl thought as he followed Andrea up the ravine, his crossbow light in his hands. She was several feet ahead of him, ambling through the forest in her cute little shoes (how women crucified their feet by squeezing them into overpriced crappy little shoes never ceased to astound Daryl and Andrea was no exception), Glenn's backpack slung over her shoulders, moving as though she had no cares in the world. She was probably whistling a tune, thinking she was back in Florida with her Mercedes parked at the top of the hill.

He'd been following her since she left camp, more or less. She had started poking her head into his tent during the mornings whether they were due to patrol together or not. She never stayed longer than a few minutes, but this morning he was awake but in bed when she appeared. He had been surprised when he cracked open his eyes and saw her head poke through his tent flap; it was early morning and not only was she up and ready to start her day, but he wasn't. Since his near miss in the forest, his sleep cycle had been shot to shit. It was pissing him off. So he'd gotten out of bed, grabbed his gear and followed at a discreet distance. A couple of times he thought about calling out to her but her gait and tension in her shoulders indicated that she didn't want the company. He got that. But after what had happened to him on this trail, he didn't want to just leave her here. So he followed her – what else did he have to do now that Sophia had been found?

He stilled when he saw her stop partway up the hill, pausing to take a long drink from her water bottle, before she resumed her trek. Sweat had trickled down her neck and was running down her arms. The backs of her arms and legs were covered in grit and dry leaves. She was walking slowly but with purpose and he wondered why she had come to him that morning. There was no reason for her to be out here alone, not now. Maybe she had wanted to ask him to join her, had acted as emissary from Dale or Rick or Glenn or any of the others who didn't know when to leave well enough alone. Or maybe she was still atoning, visiting him like she was going to church to repent her sins. He knew that in her own way, she was still apologising for shooting him, that her little visits were based on guilt rather than anything else. In a way he wished that she would just quit already. He didn't want her pity or her sympathy. He didn't want to see it in her eyes, in everyone's eyes when they looked at him and Carol. It made him feel sick and angry.

He spotted the walker long before Andrea did; a lone kid, no more than two or three. For a split second the girl became Sophia and Daryl felt as though all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. For the first time since the world went to hell, he hesitated, and in the several seconds it took for him to regain control of himself, Andrea had despatched the kid (with impressive skill given how he had never seen her use a knife except to cut her food into dainty little pieces like she was in a fancy restaurant) and was scrabbling backwards, over the ravine that they had both tumbled down, hers in an attempt to outrun two big walkers who appeared from nowhere. These guys were wearing expensive suits and fancy casual clothes and were probably from the subdivision that Shane and Andrea had checked out just a few days' earlier. They were so focused on Andrea that they didn't even notice him and Daryl used it to his advantage, silently stalking the two men as he quickly moved through the trees, keeping the three of them in his sight as he closed in on them fast. The first one went over the cliff like a giant undead Lemming before he could get to it, but the second one hung back, tilting his head the gauge the safest route to his prey. Raising his crossbow, Daryl despatched it quickly and easily before calling to Andrea.

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"You wanna tell me just what you think you're doin' out here?" He repeated the question as the pair greedily gulped water and Andrea wiped the sweat and dirt off her face. There was a long gash on her cheek, probably from where she had fallen. It wasn't bleeding but the skin was broken, red and angry.

"What's it to you?" Andrea asked defensively, reaching for her backpack and checking that its contents were intact. Her hair was slipping loose from its ponytail and wet, muddy strands clung to the base of her neck and collarbone. Her face was beet red. "Maybe I just fancied a walk."

"You tryin' to tell me you're out on a nature walk?" Daryl couldn't believe she was capable of such dumb behaviour (even if she had shot him) so he asked, "Are you really that stupid to come wanderin' out here on your own?"

Andrea pressed her mouth into a firm line. "So what if I am?" She asked eventually.

Daryl felt like an idiot when he said, "It's dangerous to be out here, especially on your own." He said, before adding, "In case ya hadn't noticed." He pulled himself into a standing position, ignoring the pain in his side from where his wound still hadn't healed. It was bad but manageable and he doubted that he was going to get any more antibiotics from Herschel. He held out his hand to Andrea and she stared at it as though he'd wiped his ass with it and offered it to her.

"You sound like Rick and Shane." She snapped as she hauled herself to her feet.

"Well ... they ain't wrong." Daryl pointed out. He hated admitting that any lawman was right, least of all Shane, but in this case, both men really did have a point.

Andrea shook her head. "You know what?" She said, suddenly furious, "The men in this group are such hypocrites!"

Daryl actually laughed at that. "Oh, this should be good." He said, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back against a tree. "Wait a second – let me get comfortable before ya start yammerin' on about some third wave empowerment crap like it actually matters anymore."

Andrea was momentarily stunned that he had heard of the third wave of feminism, but she carried on regardless. "You all talk such bullshit about no-one going anywhere alone, yet when it suits you, you think nothing of just taking off when it suits you without a care for telling anyone else!"

"Girl, are you serious?" Daryl snapped. He couldn't believe he was hearing this. "The world's ended and we just put fifteen people in the ground and you're bitchin' to me because I'm lookin' out for your safety? Well you're fuckin' welcome, alright?"

Reality reasserted itself then and Andrea blew out a long breath. "I'm sorry." She said eventually. "I just ... I wanted some space to breathe." She said, shrugging. "I told Rick where I was, I took off ... I'm not apologising for leaving." She said defiantly. "Not to you, not to anyone. You're not my father, my brother or my husband."

"Thank God." Daryl muttered under his breath.

Andrea continued, ignoring his jibe. There was little malice in it, anyway. "But ... thank you for saving my ass. It was appreciated."

"Well, you're welcome."

The pair stared at each other for a long moment before Andrea held out her hand. "Can I have my gun back?" She asked.

He nodded and held it out to her, grip-first. When her hands reached the handle she clearly expected him to yield the weapon to her but he didn't. Instead he asked, "So where we goin'?"

Andrea's eyebrows shot into her forehead. "Going?" She repeated.

Daryl tipped his head in the direction of the trail. "You gotta be out here for somethin'." He said. "And you clearly don't wanna come back to the camp and I ain't leavin' ya here on your own."

Her gaze narrowed then, clearly trying to work out what he was up to. "Don't you have anything else to do?" She said, a flash of regret crossing her face as soon as the words were out of her mouth and she clearly realised that he didn't have anything else to do. "Daryl, I-"

He waved off her forthcoming apology. "Unless ya want me to follow you from thirty feet away like I've been doin' this whole time?" He said.

She gave him a weak smile and shook her head. "No, you can come along. I was just going to head to the top of the hill and see the valley. Must be nice up there."

"Dunno," He said, shrugging easily as he released his grip on the pistol and began the ascent to the top. "Never made it that far."

"Me neither." Andrea said, tucking the pistol into her jeans as she fell into step with him.

They had been walking for several minutes when she started to open her mouth, clearly working words around in her mouth as she thought about what she wanted to say.

"Spit it out." Daryl sighed as they threaded through the forest. "I can see your brain workin' from here."

She gave him a wry smile. "The third wave of feminism?" She asked.

He shrugged, returned her smile, but said nothing and they continued their walk up the hill.

TBC.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Thanks so much for the reviews, guys – they're lovely I'm really enjoying writing this multi-chapter fic so I'm glad to see that you're enjoying reading it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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The sun was at full height in the sky when they took a break from walking and sought shelter from the fierce Georgia sun. Andrea's t-shirt was completely wet with sweat and she had long since given up trying to push the sweat from her eyes. Even Daryl seemed bothered by the heat; it was his suggestion that they rest and so, under the shade of a large oak tree, they leaned against the cool, rough bark and pooled provisions. It was an uninspiring choice.

"Okay, so I have protein bars, jerky, my last bar of chocolate – which has probably melted by now – more protein bars, oh, and more jerky." Andrea said as she tipped the contents of her backpack onto the floor.

Daryl picked up the wilted, melted Hershey's bar between his thumb and forefinger, his face bearing something that looked like trepidation. "Think I'll leave this to you." He said, reaching for some jerky, which was carefully wrapped in foil from the Green farmhouse.

Andrea sighed and reached for a protein bar, almost spitting it out in disgust when she bit into it. "God, these are awful." She said in-between bites. "A girl in my office used to eat them all the time; I don't know how she managed it." Eventually she abandoned the bar and reached for the jerky. It mingled with the sawdusty taste of the protein bar and made her feel slightly queasy. "What I wouldn't give for a steak." She sighed, her mouth almost watering at the prospect of a thick, juicy steak from one of Jacksonville's best steakhouses.

"Haven't done much huntin' since we been at the farm." Daryl said in agreement. "Haveta see if we can't find us some squirrel or rabbit. Or you could find a lake, try and fish." He added.

Andrea clutched at her stomach. "God, no more squirrel!" She groaned in faux-agony. When Daryl had first started bringing squirrels back to camp she had been torn between revulsion and gratefulness. One couldn't survive on canned goods alone, after all. But after weeks of watching him come out of the woods with a string of dead squirrels, she was getting heartily sick of the taste.

He shrugged. "Better for ya than that protein crap." He indicated to the half-discarded protein bar. "Although there's deer in these woods; might have to see if we can't kill us some, take back to camp."

"A decent meal might lift everyone's spirits." Andrea said softly, abruptly closing her mouth when she saw the shadow that passed Daryl's face. Clearing her throat, she took a swig of water and asked, "So where did you think you saw the Chupacabra?" She asked as she offered him the canteen in her hand.

Daryl eyed the bottle warily as he said, "I know what I saw."

"I know you did." Andrea said evenly, still holding the bottle out. "I'm not saying you didn't."

"Yeah you are." He said shortly. "Ya got that lawyer voice on."

Andrea raised her eyebrows at him and gave him a steady gaze, figuring that aside from Rick and Shane, Daryl would have more experience than anyone else with lawyers, whether it had been bailing Merle out or being bailed himself. It didn't unnerve her like it once might have, however. Past or not, Daryl was a good, man, loyal and kind in his own gruff way. He'd proved that more than once in recent weeks. And everyone had a past both good and bad. So she said, "I don't have a lawyer voice." She said.

He shook his head. "Yeah, ya do." He said. "You're usin' it right now."

"Am not!" She said indignantly, wondering how they had begun bickering again so quickly. To an outsider they must sound like an old married couple.

"Yeah, you are!" He replied, sounding irritated.

Exasperated, Andrea exhaled a deep breath and gestured with the bottle that was still in her outstretched hand. "Daryl, I believe you." She said firmly. "Now come on, take a drink before you pass out from dehydration."

"So just what is a Chupacabra?" She asked once they were back on the road, the hill climbing steadily before them. The hill was deceptively high and hard to navigate, the woods before them filled with thick trees and dense undergrowth. The good news was that it would be difficult for a walker to creep up on them. The bad news was that if they got lost or stuck they would be screwed. She didn't want to turn back, however, and she knew that if Daryl did, or if he didn't think it was safe, then he would say something about it. But he said nothing. So they carried on.

When he didn't answer, she pressed harder. "I'm serious!" She exclaimed. While the others had scoffed at Daryl's supposed sighting, she hadn't, not only because she didn't know exactly what a Chupacabra was, but also because she preferred to reserve judgement until she'd thought about it some more. Daryl might have been many things but he wasn't a liar and he was an expert tracker. If a Chupacabra existed and he said that he had seen it, then she would be more inclined to believe him than the others' calm dismissals.

"Whatever." He said flatly. Clearly he thought that she was teasing him. "No-one else believed me, don't know why you would."

"Daryl, you don't lie or exaggerate." Andrea said honestly. If anyone could be counted on for an honest, no-BS opinion or assessment then it was Daryl Dixon. The man had made bluntness an art form. "If you said you saw something then you saw something."

Daryl didn't reply for a few minutes, but when he did, he gave her the information that she had asked for. "Chupacabra's Spanish for goatsucker." He began. "Some people say its like a reptile, all scaly, forked tongue, bright red eyes. Others say its 'bout the same size as a small bear, row of spines runnin' from the neck to the base of the tail." He indicated with his hand where the spines would run, his arm muscles straining and bulging beneath the wet, dirty skin. As he lifted his arm Andrea caught an unexpected whiff of his scent, strong and pungent and filling her nostrils. He smelled like male sweat, testosterone and the forest. It wasn't unpleasant it was just ... primal.

"Okay." She said, gesturing that he continue.

"Been sightin's in Mexico, Puerto Rico, further south. Parts of America, too. Farmers find their livestock drained dry pets too, sometimes."

"Sounds gruesome." Andrea said, wrinkling her nose.

"Just survivin', like everyone else." Daryl said simply.

"Okay, so where did you see this ... goatsucker?" Andrea asked.

Daryl gestured beyond the ridge, somewhere between the valley and Herschel's farm. "Over there." He said. "Couple miles from where we are. Damned thing was standing at the top of the hill, watching me."

"Probably thought you looked tasty." Andrea quipped, before abruptly closing her mouth when she realised just what that sounded like.

Daryl gave her a look that indicated he thought she was crazy, but carried on talking. "Was searching for Sophia, found the Chupacabra instead."

"Did its eyes glow red?"

"No." Daryl conceded. "Had a long snout, tail, ridge of fur."

"It sounds like a dog." Andrea said. "Or a coyote."

"I know what I saw!" Daryl insisted. He opened his mouth to say more, but rustling in the trees and forests beyond them silenced them both and they stilled immediately, the pair of them flattening their bodies against the nearest tree. Daryl's bulk was almost unbearably warm beside Andrea but this was one heat that she found welcome. For the first time since venturing out of the camp, she was glad that she had company. Reaching around to the waistband of her jeans, she palmed the pistol and thumbed the safety off.

Daryl's hand on the pistol stopped her. He shook his head, pushing the barrel towards the forest floor. "If it's a walker, gunshot'll draw more." He whispered, nodding in approval when Andrea put away the pistol and pulled out her knife.

But the threat never materialised, and both breathed a sigh of relief when a doe ambled across their path, her huge brown eyes blinking rapidly as her long legs tugged her past them. Soon she was gone, swallowed up by the forest and Andrea leaned her head against the cool tree bark. "Do you think we should follow it, try and kill it?" She asked.

Daryl shook his head. "Not much point." He said softly. "Be a waste of all that meat." He glanced around the forest, not moving until he was satisfied. "Still wanna walk?" He asked. "Plenty of time to get to the top and back if we push hard."

Andrea gave him a smile. "Sure." She said. "To the top."

TBC.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four.

Thanks so much for your reviews!

Disclaimer: I own nothing

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They were halfway up the hill when Daryl began to hear a familiar voice in his ear.

_Whatcha doin' hangin' out with the lawyer, baby bro? Thought you hated lawyers? You her bitch now, too? _

Daryl jerked his head up awkwardly, his eyes scanning the forest ahead and shaking his head when his eyes gave him nothing but trees and leaves. Unfortunately, his unconscious mind had other ideas and his brother was beside him then in his dirty jeans and leather vest, with both hands fully intact. The left one clipped Daryl over the head so hard he almost stumbled. Merle had always been bigger than him in a way that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with just being a mean son of a bitch.

As usual, Merle couldn't keep his mouth shut: _Thought I told ya you can't trust no lawyers, boy!_ He said. His older brother even smelled bad: drugs, booze and sweat. Daryl knew that he didn't smell particularly great but the smell his unconsciousness remembered when he thought about his brother made him want to take a step back. _Now here ya are, followin' one to make sure she doesn't get her purty little toes stubbed ... unless ya plannin' on suckin' 'em once ya get to the top! _

"Shut up." Daryl ground his teeth, but Merle fell in step beside him then, leering at Andrea with a casually lecherous gaze that made Daryl's hackles rise.

_Mind you, I don't blame ya_, _bet she's got real cute toes, too, neat and painted and everything. Bet she'd probably like that, way she's been lookin' at you these past coupla hours._

"Stop." Daryl said, his older brother's fleshy face fixed on Andrea's petite, lithe form. She was blissfully unaware, chatting away about something that he didn't hear because he was hallucinating his elder brother.

Merle, it would seem, was still talking. _She's a looker alright. Nice tits. Shame about the sister. She was a looker, too. Less mouthy than this one, too, but you always did like girls who knew how to talk. Each time I see you with a girl you were talkin' – always talkin'. That girl, what was her name?"_

Daryl hated himself when he replied, "Lucy Sanders."

_Lucy Sanders!_ Merle crowed in recognition. _Man, she was a cute thing, she was. You always had the cute girls goin' after ya, much cuter than Lucy. Guess you just liked that cute little librarian's uniform she used to wear!_ He gestured to Andrea again, who was still talking but looking at Daryl with a strange look. _She reminds me of Lucy. _

"Shut up!" Daryl repeated with slightly more force this time.

"Just what's your fucking problem!" Andrea's voice cut through Merle's voice then, and when Daryl jerked his head towards his companion, he saw that she was staring at him strangely.

"Huh?" He said, nonplussed.

"You just told me to shut up!" Andrea exclaimed indignantly. "All I was asking is how you learned how to track and shoot that crossbow and you bit my head off!"

"I – I wasn't – nothing. Never mind." Daryl said eventually, ignoring the laughter behind him. He was not going to admit to Andrea that he was hallucinating. If she didn't already think that he was crazy then she certainly would if he told her about Merle.

_She already thinks you're a lunatic_, Merle whispered in his ear. _You know how she and her sister used to look at us back at the camp. Used to look at us like we were trash, like you were nothing more than dog shit she scraped off her shoe. You're always gonna be trash to her, no matter how often you follow her out of camp to make sure she doesn't go shootin' herself or runnin' into walkers- _

Andrea's voice cut through his brother's husky, poisonous words again. "Dixon! Are you listening to me!" She shouted this time. She sounded angry.

"Quit shoutin'!" Daryl snapped. Between her and Merle he could feel a headache forming in his temple. For the first time, he began to wonder if they should head back to camp. At least then Andrea could just go and bitch to Lori about him and he could retreat back into his tent and get some peace and quiet.

"Well excuse me for getting a little pissed at you ignoring me while I'm standing right here!" Andrea snapped back.

"I'm not ignorin' you!" Daryl shouted.

"Oh really? Because me talking and you not replying or even listening, seems to fit my description of ignoring someone pretty well!" Andrea retorted, folding her arms and giving him a stubborn look.

"I wasn't ignorin' you!" Daryl insisted angrily.

Andrea shook her head, clearly in disbelief. "You know what – forget it." She said as she began to walk away. "Forget that I should ask you to teach me something useful other than doing endless amounts of goddamned washing, that I should ask you to teach me something in case something happens to you and we can't fend for ourselves! Why don't you just do what you did before and follow from a nice, safe distance where you don't have to pretend to listen to me or pretend to even like me? In fact, why don't you just go back to camp and skin some squirrels, or go find that doe and shove a crossbow bolt up its ass!" Her speech over, she turned on her heel and began to stalk away from him as fast as she could.

_Guess you'd better go make nice with the little missus!_ Merle chuckled. _Wouldn't want ya to be in the doghouse with your new ladyfriend. _

Daryl gave him a thunderous look. "Ya know, the longer you stay gone the more I think it was the best thing you ever did. Because the two times you've come back since ya left, I've always end up in the shit." He stalked past his brother then, grinding his teeth that he had not just allowed his brain to manufacture Merle yet again, but that he had once again talked back to the hallucination. The ironic thing was, was that if Merle could see him now, could see him talking to himself, he'd slap his ass into next week without even breaking a sweat. "And don't follow me!" He snapped as a final retort.

Merle's, _that's cold, little brother, abandonin' me for some pussy, however sweet she is!_ Echoed in his ear as he followed Andrea up the hill. She was deceptively fast and had moved further along the trail than he had originally anticipated.

"Hey, wait up!" He said as he fell into step beside her. "I wasn't ignorin' ya." He said honestly. " I wasn't ... Sorry, if ya thought I was. I just ... zoned out." He said. It was a lame explanation and he knew it, but if the search for Sophia had taught him anything, it was that the other survivors, even Andrea, sometimes needed an explanation. Sometimes they needed to hear 'sorry.' Granted, Carol had probably needed it more than most, especially while her daughter was missing, but his apology seemed to work with Andrea.

"Never heard you say sorry before." She said begrudgingly. Her shoulders were slightly less tense, however, and she didn't look like she wanted to murder him anymore.

"Well I don't say it all that often." He admitted candidly. "But ... you got a point. About the trackin' and huntin' thing, I mean. And if you wanna learn, I'll teach ya."

He almost regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. He didn't know why he was offering to teach her; he didn't do that kind of stuff. He'd shied away from the weapons training sessions that Shane and Rick organised because he didn't want to get involved in their endless attempts to be a family and to try to hold something resembling a community together. He'd been happy to do the tracking and the hunting but he hadn't thought to pass those skills on. He wasn't even sure that he could do it, not just in technique but in patience. And as was rapidly becoming apparent, he and Andrea could easily fall into bickering if given opportunity. Even if he did kind of enjoy riling her up so she used her Lawyer Voice.

Yet here he was, offering to play teacher to her. Because she did have a point: if something happened to him then they needed someone with his skills. He needed to pass at least some of them on to someone, and she was probably the best candidate. Shane, Rick and Lori were too wrapped up in their own drama to care about where the food came from so long as it was there. T-Dog still wasn't fully recovered from his blood infection. Dale was too old, Carol too devastated. Glenn would be a good choice, but the kid had enough responsibilities what with the others lowering him into wells and sending him on pharmacy runs. Andrea ... she was the best of the group. She was quick-witted, picked things up easily and aside from her sister, didn't come with any baggage. Plus, aside from Glenn and all bickering aside, she was the only one who he could bear to hang around with for more than a half hour.

Her surprise obviously mirrored his - it was written all over her face. "Really?" She asked.

"I said so, didn't I?" Daryl said, even though he knew nothing about teaching and had certainly never done it before because he had no patience with people.

"Don't sound too enthusiastic about it." Andrea grumbled.

"Well 'scuse me if I don't wanna put my only crossbow in the hands of someone who almost killed me!" Daryl retorted.

"Ah, I was wondering when you were going to start with that!" Andrea snapped, re-folding her arms and glaring at him. "You want me to apologise again, maybe let you shoot me so we're even?"

"No, I'm just sayin' that your aim ain't particularly stellar!" Daryl said.

"Don't you talk to me about my aim –" Andrea stopped herself then and took a deep breath. "Okay." She said, clearly fighting to keep a hold on her temper. "You know what? I declare this fight over. Because if this is going to work then we're going to have to go for more than five minutes without bickering like an old married couple. Otherwise we may as well go back to the camp and I don't think I can do that right now, not yet."

Daryl considered this for the moment, studied her face, still soft and delicate like it had been before everything happened. Her hair was half-falling out of her ponytail, her t-shirt drenched with sweat and dirt. She looked hot and bothered. Her jaw and eyes were still tight with irritation, but she was keeping it under control. She obviously really didn't want to go back to camp.

Neither did he.

"I can do that." He said eventually.

"Okay then." She said, moving to take a step forward until he stopped her. "What?" She said, bemused.

"First thing to remember when you're trackin' something." He said, pointing to the forest floor beneath them. "Ya can't follow somethin' if you're tramplin' all over the trail. Watch where you're goin', where ya step. Look at the forest floor, what do you see?"

Andrea stared at the floor for several seconds before shrugging. "Leaves?" She said helplessly. "Twigs? Some deer shit?"

"Oh yeah?" Daryl said, giving her a knowing smirk. "Where's the deer shit? Show me?"

"You want me to show you deer shit?" Andrea asked, her tone disbelieving. "You're serious? What – did you forget what it looked like?"

"No, but deer shit tells ya that a deer came through here, and when." Daryl said with more patience than he initially realised he had. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all. "So what do ya see?" He asked again.

Andrea stared at the forest floor for several minutes, dropping to her knees as she had seen him do so many times in the past. "Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the deer shit." She said after several minutes' observation.

"We'll find a new trail, pick it up." Daryl promised.

"You gonna tell me what was up with you before?" Andrea asked, her gaze still on the ground beneath her feet.

"No." Daryl said shortly. "Wouldn't believe me if I told ya."

Andrea gave him a steady look. "I believed your Chupacabra story, didn't I?"

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my imagination.

Thanks for all the reviews!

A/N: This chapter's for my lovely friend QSM. Been thinking of you, honey Hope this cheers you up!

Also, I'm a city girl. I know nothing about either hunting, tracking, cooking squirrels or building a fire. So once again, Wikipedia came through! Apologies if I've got it woefully wrong!

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It was an uninspired word, but an obvious one given their location. "Trees." Andrea sighed, wiping at the sweat on her face until she realised that her arms and hands were wetter than her forehead. Eventually, she gave up. There was no way she was going to de-sweat herself.

"That's the best you could come up with?" Daryl said incredulously, shifting the crossbow in his grip. Sweat ran in rivulets down his arms, turning the dirt into mud splatters that clung to the straining muscles in his arms. "I thought you were smart."

Andrea had no idea how a conversation/another bickering contest had so neatly segued into playing Word Association, but it had. So far it had lasted through two pee breaks, a food break, two lone walkers and the string of squirrels that were looped around Daryl's chest. It was bringing out the hunter in Daryl and the lawyer in Andrea. Both predators and protectors by profession, neither liked to lose.

"Stop stalling and just say something." She said, tugging on her t-shirt to circulate the air. Even in the dense forest there was little respite from the heat. The fabric peeled away from her skin like wet paper and she fought the urge to just tear it off.

"Leaves." He offered.

Andrea laughed at that. "And you call me uninspired." She exclaimed.

It was a terrible thing to admit, but Andrea had been surprised by Daryl's willingness to play and his ability and enthusiasm once they actually started. She knew he wasn't stupid, far from it: his Zen comment during the search for Sophia, combined with his Trail of Tears remark to Carol (who had recounted the exchange to Andrea as they were picking Cherokee Roses for Sophia's grave) and his recent third wave comment all indicated that he at least knew where a library was. So in a way, she wasn't surprised. Even during their first interactions, when she had been wary of him and Merle, she had always seen him as an intensely practical man, a doer rather than a thinker in the best and worst way. Shane, she had realised, tended to act too much without thinking. Rick often tended to think himself into inaction. Daryl, as was rapidly becoming apparent was more often than not a combination of the two.

He gave her a smirk. "Ya set the bar low." He said.

Andrea rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. Okay: green."

"Grass." Daryl replied immediately.

"Mower." Andrea said, smiling as she remembered her dad's excitement when he had bought the best mower in Home Depot for their front lawn.

"Shears."

"Shears? Seriously?"

"Garden tools." He replied.

"Fine. Sheep."

"Cows." Daryl offered.

Andrea sighed wistfully as her stomach grumbled. "Steak." She said.

"Man, I'm starvin'." Daryl verbalised her hunger. "Third time so far this game's turned to food."

Andrea nodded. He did have a point, but they were out of food. "We ate all the jerky. You want a protein bar?"

Daryl scowled at her offer. "Couldn't pay me to eat that. Nothin' but shit." He said.

Andrea smiled as the game resumed. "Shit. Deer."

They both laughed at that.

"Haven't played Word Association in years." Andrea said as they took another water and pee break. Both had now given up any semblance of trying to wipe the sweat out of their faces, and Andrea's hair was plastered to her scalp as though she had just stepped out of the shower. She could feel the sweat running along the waistband of her jeans, which were so wet they stuck to her thighs and made it difficult to move.

"Can't remember ever playin' it. Wasn't exactly Merle's kinda game, y'know. Or mine." Daryl added candidly, waving his hand at the air in front of him, trying to dispel the flies that were gathering around him. The heat, it would seem, was getting to him, too.

The hilltop was now in sight but they were behind schedule. At this rate they wouldn't have much time before they needed to head back if they wanted to be back at camp by nightfall. It wasn't something that either of them had brought up yet. Then it hit her like a sledgehammer. _I'm having a good time_, she thought. _In this world of madness and death and craziness, I'm actually having a good time. I'm laughing, having fun playing Word Association. With Daryl Dixon, of all people. If I had been any less observant, I would have missed it! _

She stopped herself then. That wasn't fair, not when she remembered that the last time she had laughed and talked like this, talked to another human being in a normal way, it had been with Daryl, during the search for Sophia. There they had talked like two ordinary people, had shared experiences past and present like they were having a normal conversation in the normal world. He had been curious about how she was dealing with Amy's death but unobtrusively so. He listened without judgement when she answered his question about whether or not she wanted to live. She could not believe that their conversation had been only a few days' earlier.

"Speakin' of deers." Daryl said, bending down to appraise the ground beneath their feet, oblivious to Andrea's considerations. "Looks like we might have found us a trail."

"Really?" Excitement piqued Andrea's spirits.

"Still want that trackin' lesson?" Daryl asked.

Andrea chewed the inside of her lip. "Do we have the time?" She said, raising her eyes skywards. "I mean, won't it be going' dark soon?"

Daryl chuckled. "Girl, we got hours yet. Plus ... what do we have to go back to?" He asked honestly.

Andrea considered this. When she actually thought about it, what did she have to go back to? What did either of them have to go back to? To watch Lori and Rick play out a facade of happy families while Shane silently stewed and festered and slowly went mad? Back to Dale's well-meaning but endlessly probing questions? To Carol's understandable but never-ending crying? Was that what they had to return to?

She stole a quick glance at Daryl. He was looking at her with his eyebrows raised, clearly waiting for her answer. She surmised from this that he didn't much want to go back to camp either.

Instead of answering in the affirmative, she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind. "Where will we sleep?"

Daryl looked at her as though she was insane. "Say what now?" He asked. "We'll sleep on the fucking ground – where d'ya think we'd sleep?"

"I ... okay." Andrea said finally, silently vowing that for the rest of this impromptu hunting/hiking trip she was going to thoroughly screen everything that came out of her mouth. "So, um ... you said that a deer came through here?" She said eventually.

"Looks that way." Daryl said, gesturing with his right arm in the direction of the top of the hill. "Looks like its headin' in our direction. Let's see if we can't find it and cook us up some steaks."

Tracking a deer proved to be much harder than Andrea had anticipated. A complex interplay of educated guesswork, keen observation, skill and often plain good luck, tracking and monitoring an animal's trail was something that Daryl made look not just effortless, but something Andrea didn't even know he was doing until he mentioned it with a blunt comment here and there, directing and correcting her. Don't look at your feet. Watch where you step. How old do the tracks look? Which way are they headed? Watch the trees for where the deer might have rubbed against it. Are there any broken bushes or shrubbery and if so how are they broken?

As a teacher, Daryl was reluctant but actually fairly effective. He was obviously convinced that he either wouldn't make a good teacher or didn't have the patience for it when in fact the opposite was true. In the few hours that Andrea spent tracking deer with him he proved to be a patient and understanding teacher, even if he was abrupt, abrasive and borderline obnoxious to the point where she actually picked up a piece of deer shit and threw it at him. They bickered frequently, but by the time they finally crested the hill, they had no deer but more squirrels and Andrea found that it didn't matter. She had done something useful today, had learned more in the short time she had spent with Daryl than she had for as long as she could remember, and had had a good time while doing so.

More interestingly, she couldn't remember the last time she had had so much fun arguing with someone.

Andrea had hoped that the view from the top of the hill would be beautiful, but it wasn't.

It was spectacular. So spectacular that as Andrea stood on the crest of the hill and let her gaze drift over the valley before her, with its green grasses and fresh running water, she let her breath be carried away from her lungs.

"Wow." She breathed, closing her eyes to feel the last of the intense heat warm her face. It was cooler up here for some reason, not cool enough to be cold, but the paralysing humidity was gone. The slowly setting sun cast thick, lush hues across the sky that looked like finger smears of red, yellow, orange and purple. The Green farm was just visible in the distance, the highway and its woes and the sad graves indistinguishable from the surrounding forest. And as she felt the wild beauty of the Georgia woods take her breath and carry it away, she not only felt the most serenity she had felt in a long time, but she suddenly understood why Daryl liked to spend so much time out here.

"We'd best build us a fire, eat somethin' before it gets dark." Daryl said as he brushed past her with his squirrel rope, his skin hot and slick as it touched hers. She was surprised by the jolt of electricity that shot up her arm when his skin brushed against her. He seemed to notice it too, and he frowned as he passed her, shooting her a backwards glance over his shoulder.

"Sure is beautiful up here." Andrea said softly, feeling her cheeks flush a little when she felt his eyes on her. When no answer was forthcoming, she asked, "Don't you at least think it's beautiful out here?"

"Yeah, I guess." He said, his eyes studiously on the fire he was building.

She shook her head. "Men." She muttered under her breath. Dropping to the floor, she crossed her legs in front of her and closed her eyes, letting the warm wind wash over her face, drying the sweat in salty rivulets on her skin. Even the air smelled differently up here. It was less cloying, less suffocating. It smelled less like death and regrets and baggage and more like the clean smells of the forest, unpolluted by the hell that had been unleashed.

Daryl's voice cut through her newfound serenity. "When you're done bein' at one with nature, get over here and I'll show ya how to skin and cook squirrel."

"I know how to do that." Andrea said. "It's like cooking a small chicken." She could cook chicken. She must have cooked thousands of chicken since entering adolescence. Squirrel didn't taste like chicken (even though Andrea was beginning to forget what chicken tasted like), but the culinary principles were the same. Or similar, at least.

"Okay." Daryl said, and Andrea felt herself blush when she felt his gaze meet hers. "Can ya build the fire that we need, then?"

"Of course I can!" Andrea exclaimed indignantly, even as doubt pushed against her subconscious. Could she build a fire? She tried to remember who had built the fire during childhood camping trips and Girl Guide expeditions and back at the camp, before the CDC. She couldn't remember. But even if she hadn't built a fire for a long time, or at all, it wasn't that hard, right? She could do it.

Daryl's lips curved into a full smirk as he pointed at the small pile of twigs and kindling that he had gathered. "Knock yourself out." He smirked.

TBC ...


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Thanks so much for all your reviews, guys, they really make my day!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I wrote this for fun with no copyright infringement intended.

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"Maybe you ain't such a city girl after all." Daryl said as he licked the squirrel fat off his fingers before wiping them on the grass around him. "That almost tasted like real chicken."

Andrea blushed, taking it for the compliment that it was. "Thought you said my fire was sorry-looking." She reminded him.

After many frustrating attempts, she had finally managed to light a small fire, determined that she wasn't going to use the lighter that she knew was nestled in one of the pockets on Glenn's backpack. She had been a Girl Scout for years, dammit: she _would_ do this.

Daryl shrugged. "It was." He said easily. "But ya got there, didn't ya? Once you got the hang of it, there was nothin' for me to do." He paused before giving her an appraising look. "Ya ain't as bad at all this as you like to make out, y'know."

"I'm not making out anything." Andrea said honestly, her eyes on the several remaining squirrels that weren't quite done. "There are just things that you know that I want to learn. Like tracking, for example. And hunting."

"Plenty of time for that tomorrow." Daryl said, leaning back against the thick, expansive tree that cleaved down the middle of the hilltop.

For the first time since she had known him, he looked tired to Andrea and she wondered if he was fully recovered from the injuries he sustained while searching for Sophia. He hadn't complained to her but during the last part of their hike he had been moving slower and more awkwardly than usual. He probably needed to rest. She couldn't blame him; between the hiking and the tracking and the walkers, not to mention the omnipresent, increasingly oppressive heat, she was exhausted in a way that she hadn't been for some time, and considering everything that they had gone through, that was saying something.

She sighed as she lifted the final two squirrels off of the makeshift spit and handed one to Daryl. It was only fair, she reasoned, that since he caught them, she would cook them. The slowly setting sun had lost heat and some humidity, but it was still oppressive. For the first time she wondered at how she would survive sleeping outdoors without a tent and mosquito net. Maybe they would all die off when fall came. If fall came. Right now it felt like one never-ending summer.

"What month do you think it is?" She asked Daryl, delicately picking of small portions of the dead animal and trying not to remember what it had looked like in life.

Daryl paused in between bites, tearing meat off with his teeth and holding the barbequed forest dweller like it was a corn dog. "Late August, probably." He said after several minutes. "Maybe September. Haven't ya noticed the nights gettin' shorter an' cooler?"

Andrea shrugged. "Not so much." She said softly, although she realised that if fall was coming then winter would be hot on its heels and when that came, if they weren't far south enough or well-equipped, they could all be in serious trouble.

"Thought ya were markin' days off that calendar in your purse, or the one on Daryl's RV."

Andrea stopped eating then, surprised that he had either noticed or remembered that small ritual from the quarry campsite. "That was for uh ... Amy's birthday." She managed to get out. Suddenly she felt as though all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. "After what happened I kind of stopped remembering the days." It struck her then that she couldn't remember when her sister had died. Was it six days ago? Seven? Time had ceased to have any real meaning; days were remembered not by marking dates on a calendar or the number of times her exhausted head hit the pillow, but the events that transpired. Amy had been killed the night before they left for the CDC, which had been before Carl got shot and Sophia went missing, which was before Daryl was almost killed by her itchy trigger finger. Before the barn. Everything was Before the Barn. Right now, Andrea wasn't so sure there would be an After the Barn.

She shook her head. It was an awful thing to admit, but as terrible as her sister's demise had been, so much other shit had happened since then that it was jostling for the top spot in Andrea's psyche. And it wasn't that she was diminishing what happened to her sister because she wasn't. But it was getting increasingly more difficult to place that one event on a pedestal when they seemed to lurch from one nightmare to the next with no end in sight.

It suddenly hit her then that Merle had been handcuffed to the roof only a day before Amy was shot. Within twenty-four hours of each other, they had both lost their siblings, their final flesh-and-blood kin in this world of death. And while Andrea knew that family wasn't defined just by blood, she marvelled at the coincidence. It gave them a strange kind of similarity that she wouldn't have expected.

"Do you ever wonder about Merle?" She asked, almost immediately regretting the words when they came out of her mouth, but they were out there and try as she might she couldn't stuff them back in.

Daryl tossed the squirrel bones and stick into the fire, his eyes on the flames. "Course I do." He said quietly, glancing to his left as though he expected his elder brother to appear and offer his two cents' worth to the conversation. "He's my brother, ain't he?"

Andrea considered this before opening her mouth again. Her social filter rule wasn't working out so well, and the lawyer in her reminded her that he hadn't really answered the question. Well, he had, but not really. "Do you wonder if he's alive, or what he's doing?" She pressed.

"He's alive." Daryl said with grim certainty, stabbing their fire with more force than was really necessary. His eyes remained on the flames but his expression was miles away

"He did seem ... resilient." Andrea said diplomatically.

"He was a mean sonovabitch." Daryl said candidly, shooting another glance to his left. Andrea followed his gaze, trying to see what he was obviously seeing, but she had no luck. Maybe Merle was sitting on his shoulder like a twisted version of a guardian angel. A shiver ran up her back when she thought about the way Merle had looked at her and Amy.

Daryl continued, his voice soft but his words heartbreakingly candid. "He never took care of me, not when my dad was gone and mamma worse. His idea of bein' a good brother was to slap my ass until I slapped back hard enough to make him stop."

Andrea had no idea why he was telling her this but she held her breath, waiting for him to continue. Aside from that night in the woods when they had searched for Sophia, she had never heard him talk this way before, not with her or with anyone. It wasn't something that Daryl did; even his pseudo-familial interactions with Carol had been guarded to some degree. Now he was sharing information with her, however fragmented it was.

"But he's my brother, only one I got. I shoulda gone lookin' for him." Daryl said. "I shouldn't have took off as soon as I found his hand on that roof. Shoulda slipped away, none of y'all wouldn't noticed if I had."

"You know that isn't true." Andrea said emphatically, even though she knew in her heart that it was as true as it was untrue. The others at the camp would have noticed if Daryl departed to look for his brother. They just wouldn't have mourned it. Or at least, they wouldn't until they needed him. She shook her head, almost ashamed of how they had interacted before Sophia's disappearance. They'd pegged him for nothing more than a younger version of Merle and now he had proved that he was so much more than that.

"Besides," she went on. "Merle took the van. You and Rick said so yourselves." She couldn't remember when that conversation had taken place but it had, possibly after they had buried their dead and packed up camp and had time to catch their breath. "And if he had the van then he could have come back to the camp but he didn't." She stopped then, unwilling conclude that Merle had abandoned his own brother. As she looked at the expression on Daryl's face, she saw that abandonment sat too comfortably on his expressionless face.

"We should think about puttin' the fire out." He said finally, after several minutes' silence. "Don't wanna advertise our presence to any neighborin' walkers."

Andrea nodded once, happy to let him change the conversation. "Sure." She said.

Daryl tipped his head back, examining the tree behind and above him. "Reckon we could sleep up here if we wanted." He said. "Walkers can't climb and I think we're both about to drop down from exhaustion right now."

The sun was almost fully set when the two gingerly climbed into the tree and settled some fifteen feet above ground, nestled amid sturdy branches which spread out like a cupped palm. The tree was old and smelled like the forest. Its bark was thick and uncomfortable but the branches were close together and they were able to half-lean, half-lie against the trunk and the branches, Andrea using her backpack for a rudimentary pillow.

"Can't remember the last time I slept in a tree." Andrea said as she shifted to get comfortable, Daryl unmoving beside her. Their bodies were several inches apart yet she could feel the heat from his body, smell his sweat both fresh and stale. She had never been close enough to him to catch his scent before, and it was a strong but not altogether unpleasant smell.

"Used to do it all the time back home." Daryl said, his voice low and throaty from tiredness.

"And where is home?" Andrea asked softly. His voice sounded nice when it was husky, like it was now. Nice voice, nice smell, nice arms; today had shown her that there were a lot of nice things about Daryl Dixon which she had never noticed before. A burst of the childhood sing-song, 'Daryl and Andrea sittin' in a tree' burst into her head and she pressed her lips together in an embarrassed smile.

"Town few hours south of here. Could fit everythin' on a postage stamp and still manage to mail it just fine. It ain't Miami." He added after a while. "Weren't much of anything, actually."

"Yeah, well, Miami wasn't all that great either." Andrea said at length. "Pollution, congestion, expensive. I don't miss it all that much." She said.

"Yeah, I hear ya." Daryl said in agreement.

They were quiet for a long time then, the pair listening to the sounds and smells of the forest which hung around them silent and dark and humid.

Andrea's head had slipped onto Daryl's shoulder when she spoke again. "Do you miss anything about the old world?" She asked into the still, warm night.

She wasn't surprised when he shifted his body, but she was surprised that he shifted it enough so that her head and neck were more comfortable. She thought about thanking him before discarding it. He'd only deny it, anyway. "Cold beer and porn mags." He answered after a few seconds' hesitation.

"Be serious." Andrea said. He was much, much warmer up close and the smell was more overpowering, but she found that she didn't mind. It was comforting, feeling his weight and heat next to her. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt comfortable or close like she did now, but there was a certain familiarity with Daryl which was a product of their day spent together. It probably wouldn't be there tomorrow, or next week, but it was here tonight and for that she was grateful.

"I dunno. 'sides from the walkers, things ain't changed all that much for me." He said honestly. "Not like I had all that much to begin with, ya know? Plus ... I used to eat squirrel and live in the woods all the time if I felt like it." He was silent for a few minutes before continuing. "Guess you must miss a bunch of stuff, huh?"

Andrea shrugged. "Yes and no." She said honestly. "I miss things like tampax and air conditioning and lattes and clean clothes, but most of all ... I miss feeling close to people." She said sadly. "I miss being able to speak to my mom every day, or seeing Amy. There's something about being close to someone who's known you your whole life ... I didn't need to say anything, sometimes mom would just know how I felt by the expression on my face."

"You are real easy to read." Daryl said, although he only partially understood. He was close to Merle because the older brother had dragged him from childhood to adolescence to adulthood by the balls, and because he was blood, but the more he thought about it and the more time he spent away from him, the more he realised he wasn't close to his brother. Not in the way Andrea meant.

Andrea laughed. "You're the first person outside my family to say that." She said, before adding more sombrely, "So yeah, that's what I miss the most. Just ... being close to someone."

Daryl was quiet for a moment before saying, "I'm guessing' Shane ain't the gettin' close to type, right?"

Andrea was suddenly glad that it was dark, because she could feel her cheeks burning up. "No." She said finally. "No, he isn't. And I don't want him to be."

"Huh."

"And I just ... I can't be in the camp anymore, not right now. I mean, they're all okay once you get past the baggage, which I know I have my own share of, but ... I can't be near people I'm not close to." She said finally. "If I can't be with someone I'm close to, then I don't want to be surrounded by people I'm not close with." She shook her head. "I'm probably not making any sense."

"No, I get it." He said, before asking the obvious question. "So why did you stay out here with me?"

Andrea considered this before speaking. "Well, you didn't give me much choice in the matter." She said dryly.

"True."

"But ... sometimes, when you don't speak, I forget that you're there." She said. "Being with you is the closest I can get to being alone, but ... you don't make emotional demands, or try to make me open up. So it's easier." She said. She could feel the heat and weight of his stare on her, but didn't dare say anything more.

It was fully dark when Andrea spoke again, her gaze fixed on the sky above. "Stars are beautiful all the way out here." She said, enthralled by the twinkling constellations above her. All the way out here, they were so bright that she was convinced she could hike all the way back to camp without a flashlight.

"Bet ya didn't see 'em that much bein' in Miami."

"No, not so much." She was quiet for a minute before asking, "Who's Lucy Sanders?" Her voice was muffled by the humidity and the heat and the dark, but it reverberated around their quiet companionship.

Daryl said nothing but made a low noise in the base of his throat, which sounded like a growl or a gurgle, so Andrea pressed, "I don't mean to pry-"

"Yeah ya do." Daryl found his voice. It was rough but not angry, so Andrea continued.

"-But, you mentioned her name before, I just thought ... its okay to talk about people that we miss, Daryl." She said honestly. "We all lost people, and we all talk about them except for you. You don't even talk about Merle."

Daryl was very quiet for a moment before speaking. "She's no-" "She's not no-one." He said firmly. "She's just someone I used to know." There was a sad wistfulness to his voice. Obviously he had cared for her and most likely she him, and Andrea couldn't decide if his sadness was because the end of the world had snatched her away, or if she had been lost to him long before then.

"Oh." Was all she had to say. There wasn't really anything else to say, after all, and she had brought it up. "Well she could be alive." She added, feeling the need to add something more, something to cushion the sad silence that had surrounded them.

"Yeah." His tone indicated anything but. "Ya should probably get some rest." He said. "We've gotta walk back tomorrow, find us that deer for the camp."

"You think we'll find it?" Andrea asked, her head so warm and comfortable on Daryl's shoulder that she didn't think she would ever want to move.

"Girl, ain't you tracked with me before?" He snorted, but there was little but humour in his voice.

"Maybe we'll see your Chupacabra." Andrea said, drawing her legs up and shifting her hips slightly so she was half-leaning against Daryl. It was an unconscious gesture as she prepared for sleep and she waited for him to shift his body away from her, but he didn't. He didn't move to make her more comfortable, but he didn't shy away, either.

"I know what I saw." His voice sounded heavy with sleep but there was still indignation there.

"I know. I said I believed you, didn't I?"

TBC ...


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Thanks for the reviews, guys! Done a few little flashbacks here, to mix it up. They're in italics. You'll get the idea. I also think I'm going to hit another of cemeterydreamer's prompts too: matchmaking!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my imagination. The Walking Dead and its characters belong to Robert Kirkman and AMC. I just wrote this for fun with no commercial gain or copyright infringement intended.

A/N: As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm a city girl, from the UK, no less. Most people have probably forgotten more than I know about hunting or tracking or any of that stuff. So, when in doubt, where does an enterprising girl turn? Wikipedia, of course? And generic 'Daryl Dixon's crossbow' Google searches. Real resourceful, me. Anyway, enjoy!

###

"Horton Scout 125. 29 inches long, 25 inches wide. 125-pound draw weight. Here, feel the weight." Before Andrea could protest, Daryl had tossed her his crossbow and she caught it awkwardly. It was lighter than she anticipated and she opened her mouth to say as much. Overhead, the sun pounded relentlessly on their heads and shoulders. The sweat from yesterday still dampened her t-shirt, joined now by fresh sweat which clung to her body, her hair and her clothes. She both wanted and didn't want to look in the mirror.

"Five and a half pounds, 'fore you ask." He said. Without his crossbow he looked strangely naked, and Andrea stared at the weapon in her hands, feeling like a kid with a grown-up toy. She had no idea what the hell she was doing and it must have showed on her face, for Daryl carried on talking.

"More complex than that gun of yours." He said, gesturing to the pistol which now lay atop Andrea's backpack, which was propped against the tree where they had just spent the night. "Ya can't compare the two when it comes to holdin' it and firin' it. So don't even try." He said as Andrea lifted the bow in both hands and brought the stock to her shoulder. "Here." He said, firmly touching her shoulder as he readjusted her stance. She could feel his eyes on her but didn't dare look him in the eye. "Like this."

###

_Andrea slept better than she had in weeks, maybe even months. Certainly before the world decided to end. In fact, when she thought about it the last time she had slept as well as this had been when she took a surprise trip home and ended up staying the night in her childhood bedroom. She didn't know if it was the mattress, or the familiar smells, or the childish knowledge that she was completely safe while under her parents' roof, but when she awoke the next morning as the sun peeked through the curtains she felt fresher and more rested than she had in years. _

_There had not been a comfortable mattress last night. Nor had there been a childhood bedroom and the familiar smell that encompassed her was familiar only because she had spent all day breathing it in. What was the same was the feeling she felt: safety, complete safety. For all his faults, Andrea knew that with Daryl, she was safe. As he had with other members of the group and as he had tried to do so fanatically with Sophia, he would keep her safe._

_He was still asleep when she woke up, but that wasn't what surprised her. What surprised her was their positioning, which had shifted during the night. Andrea's head was still resting on Daryl's shoulder, but over the course of the night her legs had shifted so they were partially on Daryl's legs, her knees drawn up to his chest, her hand lightly resting just over his heart. He in turn had also shifted during the night, his head drooping so his left cheek was on her forehead, his breath regular and cool and a welcome counterpoint to the intense heat from their bodies. His left arm was slung around her shoulders, his right gently resting on the cuff of her jeans. All she could smell was him: sweat, dirt, whatever it was that he used to clean his crossbow, and what smelled like plain, unscented soap that had no smell save for generic 'clean'._

_He must have noticed the change in her breathing, for his eyes flew open and he jerked his head back, blue meeting blue-green as their eyes collided. His hands flew away as though she was on fire. _

"_Daryl-" Andrea began, but he was already halfway down the tree and muttering something about breakfast. _

###

_Saw ya gettin' pretty cosy with Miss Hotshot Lawyer last night_, Merle taunted as Daryl explained the mechanics of his crossbow to Andrea. _She smells real good, huh?_

Grinding his teeth, Daryl ignored his older brother as he pointed out his crossbow's ambidextrous trigger, the arrow groove, the draw weight, the steel stirrup and the alloys and pulleys and cables that made the crossbow work. Andrea, for her part, took it in with a nod, her gaze solely focused on the weapon in her hands and his instructions. Ordinarily Daryl would have been pleased that she was focused on the task rather than anything else (he had noticed that her mind seemed to wander as much as her mouth did; did she _really_ have to say every single word that popped into her head?) but right now it meant that she was also watching him quite closely; too closely for him to start backtalking to his elder brother.

As if to prove his point, Merle leant in close to Andrea and inhaled deeply. _Mmmmm_, Merle said, his eyes flickering down Andrea's face and neck as he spoke. _She smells good. Can see why you slept like a baby last night, surrounded by all this. _

Daryl moved around Andrea's body under pretence of checking her stance, forcibly moving Merle away from the blonde woman, his stomach recoiling as he did so. Merle may have been his brother and he may have been a hallucination but he would be damned if he was going to let him sniff Andrea like he was a dog in heat. A dozen retorts came to Daryl's mind as his elder brother stumbled backwards with a braying laugh and hands held up in surrender, but he bit them all back. Merle wasn't here. Merle had had opportunity to return to their camp, to return to his brother. He hadn't done that. Instead he'd taken off, taken their group's van, and saved his own skin. What he was seeing now was nothing more than a figment of his imagination and insecurities.

_Figment, huh? Insecurities?_ Merle threw over his shoulder as he walked into the forest, _ya been hangin' out with Andrea too much, baby bro! I'm just gonna leave ya to it, watch from a distance while ya screw up, just like ya screw up everything! You couldn't save me, couldn't save Sophia – what makes you think you can fix this girl who doesn't even know if she wants to live anymore? And more's the point – why would she want you, of all people, to save her? _

"Daryl? Daryl, are you alright?" Andrea's voice brought him out of his hallucination, and when he turned his head Andrea was staring at him with apparent concern, the crossbow hanging slackly in her grip.

He ground his teeth and straightened his posture before gesturing that she bring the weapon back up to her shoulder. "Ain't gonna shoot shit leavin' it hangin' down there." He said roughly, ignoring the echo of Merle's words as they rang through his ears. "Now come on, we got a lot of ground to cover."

"You know, you're the one standing staring into space." Andrea bit out. Seriously? He was bitching to her about her lack of concentration when he was the one staring at the forest as though expecting the Dali Lama to wander out of it? "You sure you aren't seeing things, or you're not sick?" He didn't look well. Physically he looked fine if a little fatigued, but his eyes ... he looked like he was off on another planet. It didn't fill her with confidence.

"I'm fine!" Daryl snapped irritably. He kept forgetting that the group constantly liked to ask how you were doing, if you were okay. He had never had so many people he didn't know enquire after his well-being. It was a little ... weird.

Andrea narrowed her eyes at him, as though trying to discern whether he was telling her the truth. "Okay." She said warily, half-breaking her gaze as she returned her attention to the weapon.

"No." Daryl said, forcibly repositioning her. "Ya stance is too soft. Like this."

"Like how?" Andrea asked, nonplussed. She glanced down at herself, tying to work out just what she was doing wrong. "I can't see that I'm doing anything differently than I was before."

"Yeah, ya are." Daryl said. He was probably being too hard on her (her stance really wasn't all that bad for a beginner) but Merle, or rather, his own treacherous subconscious, had rattled him. And he couldn't shout back at Merle without Andrea thinking that he was fucking crazy. "Your stance is sloppy. You're shootin' a crossbow, not firing a bazooka. Close your stance."

"My stance is exactly the same as it was before." Andrea said indignantly. Daryl could hear her Lawyer Voice pushing through her inflections.

"No, your legs are too wide!" He tapped her instep with his boot once, twice, three times until he was happy with her foot width. Then he returned his attention to her shoulders. She was holding the crossbow like a pistol, her shoulders squared rather than turned to the side. "Move 'em to the side." He said. "Like you're firin' a rifle rather than that pistol ya got."

This went on for several more seconds until he finally got completely exasperated (with himself and with her apparent inability to do exactly what he wanted) and repositioned her body himself. It was then that Andrea finally lost her temper.

"Stop manhandling me!" She snapped, dropping her stance completely and fixing him with a death glare. "Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it but don't toss me around like a rag doll!"

"I'm not manhandling you!" Daryl retorted, although when he looked at the pair of them – his hands on her shoulders, his body almost pressed against hers, her head radiating and melting into his – he realised that they were probably too close for comfort. Closer than he got to anyone.

Andrea had noticed it too, but like him she made no real attempt to back away. "Um, yeah, you are!" She snapped.

"Hey, you asked me to teach you how to do this stuff!" Daryl retorted. "You don't like the teacher, get out of the classroom and go back to that little pistol you like so much."

"You didn't exactly give me a whole lot of choice!" Andrea snapped.

"Well I couldn't let you wander off alone in the woods!" Daryl snapped.

"You couldn't?" Andrea countered, her temper rising with each word that was exchanged between them. "Are you serious? I'm not a child, Daryl!" She opened her mouth to say more but it was too late. The words were already out.

Daryl glared at her but there was no mistaking the wounded look in his eyes. He would probably have preferred that she had slapped him. She would probably have preferred that she had slapped him. The pair glared at each other for several seconds before Andrea inhaled a deep breath, counting to ten as she exhaled. Only once she was done did she speak again. "I'm sorry." She said. "That – that didn't come out as I meant it to."

"Figure of speech, right." Daryl muttered.

She gave him a half smile. "You wanna shout at me some more about how my stance is all wrong?" She said in peace offering. It felt like the least that she could do.

###

_Andrea was desperately wishing for some toothpaste when Daryl appeared from the forest clutching two squirrels and a healthy amount of what appeared to be blackberries. _

"_Breakfast of champions." Andrea said, holding the two dead forest animals by the tail as she inwardly sighed. As much as she was glad that they weren't starving (and never would starve as long as Daryl was around), the thought of cooking another squirrel made her want to either weep or vomit. She wondered if she still had that chocolate bar in her bag. It would be the first time since Christmas that she had had chocolate for breakfast. _

_He shrugged easily, his earlier embarrassment apparently forgotten. "Figured you'd be sick of squirrels." He said softly. _

_Andrea paused as she inspected Daryl. Most of the grime was gone from his face and arms and he smelled less ... Daryl-ish at the neck and under his arms. "You look cleaner." She said suspiciously. _

"_Thanks." He snorted, offended. _

_Andrea realised how her initial statement had sounded before amending with, "No, I mean ..."_

_Daryl gave another one of those shrugs that could mean anything. "There's a small stream through that clearing." He said, gesturing with his bow. "Small tributary, meets the river later on. Ain't much water but its clean and fresh and cold. Figured we'd fill up our bottles before we made for the camp."_

_Andrea was gone before Daryl had finished speaking, her brain registering only water, clean, fresh and cold. Tucking her pistol into the back of her jeans, she followed Daryl's pointer finger and made for the stream. _

"_Be careful!" He called after her. _

_The water was not just clean and fresh and cold, Andrea reflected as she splashed it on her face again and again and again. It was utter heaven. Figuring that Daryl had probably done a fairly thorough sweep of the area and she would hear any walkers than came through the trees, Andrea quickly stripped down to her underwear, left her pistol on the rock closest to the stream of fast-flowing, clear water, and waded into the stream. It was not deep, only maybe twelve inches, but it was enough for her to wash herself and take away some of the awful sweat and dirt that clung to her body. Filling her water bottle, she leaned forwards and tipped the lot over her head and neck, smiling as the water ran in rivulets through her hair, immediately soaking it. The water was like cold clear silk on her body and she felt herself sigh in happiness as she felt the grime and sweat be slowly washed downstream. She contemplated washing her t-shirt before thinking the better of it, but left it on the damp pebbles at the side of the stream, hoping that the cool, wet rocks might at least take some of the smell away. Eventually, she redressed and made her way back to camp, pistol in hand and long, wet tendrils soaking the back of her t-shirt. _

_Daryl's head jerked up as he saw her emerge from the trees. She was walking slowly and laboriously, her pistol tucked into the waistband on her jeans. She seemed more relaxed now, probably since she had managed to wash. He'd caught her fidgeting a little during the night. She had been deeply asleep and was probably unaware that she was doing it. Once he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, she had calmed down soon enough, had turned her head into his shoulder, for the extra security. He'd been tempted to turn her away because he couldn't sleep when people were crowding him, but she'd looked so comfortable and peaceful lying there and it wasn't until he was halfways asleep that he realised that he was pretty comfortable, too. And then she had gone and woken up before him and found him curled around her like a little girl. _

_The squirrels were cooking over the small fire that Daryl had built, but they were not yet done, so Andrea deduced that she had not been away for all that long, no more than ten minutes. She could feel him watching her, scrutinising her. She was beginning to realise that he did that – silently sized people up. Shane and Rick tended to be more obvious about it; Shane because that was just his way and he wanted you to know that you were being sized up, while Rick did it and everyone knew because everyone expected it from him. He was the Sheriff, after all. But Daryl ... most people forgot that he was a hunter and a tracker and a damned good one. _

"_Ya look cleaner." He said as she approached, nodding in thanks as she offered him a drink from her refilled water bottle. _

"_Touche." Andrea grinned, amazed at how much her quick wash had reinvigorated her and improved her mood. "You've been busy." She said, gesturing to the squirrels. _

_He shrugged. "Figured you cooked 'em last night." He said simply. _

_Andrea smiled and reached for a blackberry. "Daryl Dixon, exemplar of the modern man" She joked. _

_They ate breakfast in relative silence, and soon they were packing up their few belongings and making ready to leave for their camp. Andrea stood for a moment on the hilltop, sighing as she took in the scene before her: the gentle dips and valleys of the hills, the lush trees and forests, the outline of Herschel's farm barely visible. Standing here, among such glorious, natural beauty, it was easy to forget the cruel world that they lived in. She wondered if they could stay here and never go back, make their home among the mountains and the hills and the fresh water. It was not a serious consideration, obviously, but when she thought about it, she couldn't help but wonder just what they were both going back to? As much as she was only-half joking, she realised that she could do a lot worse than strike out on her own with Daryl Dixon. Yesterday had given her an indication of what it would be like, and it didn't sound too bad. To be sure, they would fight a lot, but they would never keep anything off their chests and she could count on him. He had saved her life, after all. _

"_You plannin' on paintin' a picture of that view!" Daryl called, jolting her out of her daydream. When she turned around he was holding something out to her, but to her surprise it was not her backpack but instead his crossbow. _

"_What's this?" She asked. _

"_You want to hunt and track, you need to use this." He said. "Ya don't wanna scare away your second kill by killin' your first,"_

"_That makes sense." Andrea said. _

"_Well let's go then." Daryl said, gesturing that she take the crossbow. Her hands brushed against his as she did so, and she couldn't deny the jolt of electricity which crackled and soared up her arm. _

###

It took them a considerable part of the morning, but by the time the sun was at its highest point in the sky Andrea was a little more confident with the crossbow and Daryl was satisfied that she wasn't going to fire the thing and miss her target.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked as they trekked downhill, her backpack bumping against the waistband on her jeans.

"Ya just did." He said.

"Funny. I'm serious." She said. Despite their bickering, the air was lighter between them, even playful. She found that she was enjoying it.

"Somethin' tells me that you're gonna ask it anyway." He said with a shrug.

"Why didn't you help Rick and Shane with the gun lessons?" Andrea asked. It had been playing on her mind ever since their lesson began in earnest . In the three hours they had spent together (had it been three hours? It felt more like ten minutes but then, the past two days had gone so quickly she was at a loss to account for why) he had proved what a good teacher he could be. To be sure he was abrasive, sarcastic and impatient, but so long as she was prepared to concentrate and try her best, he had made it clear that he would spend hours helping her. Assuming that she took it seriously.

Daryl snorted. "You serious?" He said, genuinely surprised at her question.

"Well don't you think that we all need to be able to defend ourselves?" Andrea said. She didn't think that it was an unreasonable suggestion and was pretty sure that Daryl wouldn't either, not when it came to the safety of the group. "Or have you also joined the macho club of 'We're the men, we'll do the fighting while the women do all the chores?"

"Somethin' tells me you got an axe to grind about that." Daryl said, giving her a wry smirk.

"The world is ending and everyone expects me to do laundry." Andrea snapped, feeling her face flush with anger. "You want to tell me which part of that is fair or even logical?"

Daryl wiped at the sweat that beaded his brow and reached for his water. "Be sure to write Susan Faludi and let her know."

"Okay – that's it." Andrea said, halting her steps so quickly that Daryl walked right into her, spilling water all over them both.

"Watch where ya goin'!" He exclaimed indignantly. "What did you stop for?"

Andrea turned around to stare at him. "Susan Faludi, Daryl?" She said, incredulous.

He gave her a nonplussed look. "So I read, so what? Ya didn't think I was total illiterate trash, did ya?" He gave her a satisfied, if slightly disappointed look when she did not contradict him. "My town had a library, alright?" He said defensively. "All the pretty girls used ta hang out there." He did not add that during the winter months he sometimes stayed there until it closed simply because he didn't want to go home. Lucy Sanders' cute librarian's uniform hadn't helped, either

A lightbulb went on in Andrea's head. "Like Lucy Sanders?" She asked.

Daryl shook his head, grinding her teeth at her powers of observation. "Don't use your Lawyer Voice on me 'cos it ain't gonna work." He said.

"Come on, Daryl!" Andrea exclaimed, following him as he began to take point through the forest. "You talk about feminism, the Trail of Tears, Zen – and you read that book I gave you in a day!"

"I'm a fast reader." Daryl said defensively. He felt like he was a witness at one of her trials, and tried really hard not to picture Andrea cross-examining him on the stand. It set his teeth on edge in more ways than one.

"You know what I'm getting at." Andrea said. "Why won't you just admit that you like reading and you're smart? There's no shame in having a thirst for knowledge or doing something about it."

"You want a lesson in tracking?" Daryl reminded her, pointing to the forest floor. "'cos you're missing the trail."

"Did you meet Lucy at the library?" Andrea pressed.

Daryl rolled his eyes. "This is none of your business." He snapped, before adding, "Why? What's it to you? Why d'you care so much?"

"I just ... you sit in our camp day in and day out and listen to us bitch and whine about our problems." Andrea said, shrugging once. "Yet you never offer anything about yourself."

"Ya ever wondered why?" Daryl said, imitating her shrug. "Besides, not like I can get a word in edgeways with Lori and the baby, Rick and Herschel and the barn, Shane and Lori, Carl with his six shooter, Dale and Shane, not to mention Herschel's kid who's glued to Glenn's hip. I swear, I spent one day in that tent and I had headaches for days afterwards from all the baggage you people carry around like it actually means anything anymore. I was wishin' that your aim had been better."

Andrea stared at him, not quite sure what to say. "I just ... I don't know." She said, shrugging a little. "I guess I just wanted to know a little more about you. I mean, you're smart and this Lucy girl's the first person you've ever spoken about aside from Merle, so I figured that she was important to you." Sensing that she wasn't going to get anywhere, she shut up and they walked in silence for a few more minutes until Daryl spoke.

"I do think it's a dumb idea, havin' the women do nothin' but the chores." He said finally. "I mean, what if somethin' happens to me and Rick and Shane and the walkers come through that farm? But ... it ain't like Lori can go traipsin' through the forest shootin' walkers, not now she's pregnant and even if Rick would have considered it anyway. And Carol ..." His face darkened then, his mind clearly on Ed and then Sophia. Eventually he shrugged. "Maybe they just did it cos ... I don't know." He said. "What did they do before all this?"

Andrea considered this. "I think they both were homemakers." She said. Lori had mentioned it once and she was pretty sure that Carol hadn't worked before the end of the world.

He gave her an even look. "Maybe they're just tryin' to hang on to their old lives, too." He said. "Maybe they don't see it as goin' backwards. Maybe for them, it's a way of things staying the same."

"I hadn't considered that." Andrea admitted.

"Well, there ya go, then. Told ya I was smart."

"Guess so." They grinned at each other for several minutes before Daryl spoke again.

"I don't think my teaching style would have gone over so well with our two Sheriffs." He said.

Andrea shook her head. "Trust me, your teaching methods couldn't have been any worse than Shane's." She said as she told him about her lesson with Shane, leaving out some of the finer points of their one-on-one session. He seemed to know about that, anyway and she marvelled at how he did.

"You're a great teacher, Daryl." She said genuinely. "I really mean that. You've got so much to teach people; I learned more from you these past two days than I have since this whole mess began."

He didn't say anything for a few minutes, but his gruff, "Thanks" sounded more heartfelt and surprised than anything Andrea had heard in a while.

TBC ...


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight. 

Thanks so much for the reviews, guys! Only two or three more chapters to go and this will be done!

Disclaimer: The Walking Dead belongs to Robert Kirkman and AMC. I write just for fun with no copyright infringement intended.

###

"So you never told me just what the point of the Chubacabra story is." Andrea said as they traipsed through the forest, Daryl taking point, Andrea following close behind.

"Shush." Daryl said hoarsely, side-walking through the trail, following the leaves and grass and dirt on the floor.

They had been following a doe for several miles now, the hunt taking them far away from the trail back to their camp. Andrea was trying her best to keep up with him but had to admit, she just couldn't discern the trail that had so captivated Daryl. She could feel sweat trickle between her breasts and soak her shirt. Grime clung to every available patch of skin. Hunting was officially the dirtiest task she'd ever undertaken.

Eventually, she asked, "What can you see?" She squinted to see if she could see what he saw. Nothing: the forest floor looked like a maelstrom of churned-up leaves and dirt, just like the trail from two miles ago and probably for the next two miles.

He sighed. "You can't see it, huh?" He said, although there was little derision there.

She felt a blush creep up her cheeks. "I'm sorry." She said. "Its not you – you're a great teacher and so helpful and patient." She shook her head. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this, Daryl."

Anger flared inside of him. "Now that's crap!" He exclaimed, all thought for keeping his voice down long gone. "Stop with that weak-assed defeatist crap. Jesus, Andrea, I thought you were past that!"

Andrea's brow furrowed at that. "What?" She said, her temper flaring once more at his words. "Weak-assed defeatist crap? Are you serious?"

"I thought you'd moved on from your, 'I don't know if I want to live.'" Daryl elaborated.

Andrea felt as though all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. "My world imploded and my sister's been dead less than two weeks and you wonder why I'm a little cut up about it? Just because you didn't care about your brother doesn't mean I didn't care about my sister!"

The conversation died stone dead then, the pair of them staring at each other furiously, once again nose to nose and shouting at each other. It was getting to be a habit of theirs. All Andrea could feel and hear was the blood rushing and roaring in her ears. Part of it was anger, part of it was ... something else. She felt angry and furious and hurt but she also felt ... overwhelmingly alive.

Finally, Daryl swallowed and took a step away from her. "Don't talk about Merle." Daryl snapped, his eyes glittering. "Do _not_ talk about my brother, y'got it?"

Something about the way he spoke made Andrea's anger evaporate instantaneously. "Okay." She said softly.

They stared at each other for several minutes, both flushed, sweaty and panting from the heat, until Daryl spoke again. "We're not far from the doe." He said softly. "We haul ass, we can catch it and take it back to camp."

Andrea mimicked his swallow and nodded once. The others would definitely be appreciative of the food, and it might even mean that Rick, Shane and Dale didn't collectively chastise her for staying out all night. "Okay." She said, moving to take a step forwards until he stopped her, his palm flat against her stomach, his hand burning her skin through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. She'd never noticed how big his hands were; the size of plates, his little finger pressed against the under-wiring of her bra while his thumb was a fraction from the waistband of her jeans and his hand was even fully splayed. It was a gesture designed to make her stop but it was an intimate one, at the same time. It was the first time he had ever touched her before and it was like being exposed to a live wire.

"What?" She asked.

He seemed to feel it too, and he hastily jerked his hand away. "You're traipsin' all over the trail." He said softly, gesturing to the floor.

"Oh."

She must have looked suitably nonplussed, because he gave her the ghost of a smile. "You wanna start the lesson from the beginnin'?" He asked.

Andrea felt relief wash through her. "Sure." She said softly. "And thanks. Sometimes ... I tend to let my mouth run away with me."

"Think we're both guilty of that." He shuffled a little on his feet, clearly a little embarassed. "I know ya cared for your sister." He said finally. "Wasn't tryin' to imply that you didn't. Its just ... ya seemed okay these past few days."

Andrea considered this. "Well ... you have a skill for keeping my mind off of it." She said honestly. There was nothing else to say, really. It was the truth: between their bickering and squabbling and hunting and tracking lessons, he'd actually helped her forget that her world had imploded.

A look of genuine surprise crossed his face at that comment. "Huh." He said. He seemed pleased. "Well how about that."

Andrea smirked. "Fighting with you tends to take my mind off the fact that our siblings are dead or worse and everything we held dear has gone, alright?"

The pair stared at each other for a long moment before Daryl cleared his throat and pointed to the floor. He was beginning to wilt a little under Andrea's gaze. "So. Tracking 101." He said, once again beginning her lesson from the beginning.

###

"How old were you, your first time?" Andrea whispered as they moved through the forest. By Daryl's reckoning they were not far behind the doe and she didn't want to spook it now, when they were so close.

Daryl shrugged. "Soon as I was able." He said, giving her a smirk. "Me an' Merle had a different upbringing to you girls, I bet."

"I don't doubt it." Andrea stepped on a twig and it snapped, its sound echoing around the forest. Daryl scowled at her before continuing.

"Got to be times when dad was drunk and mamma not there, never enough money or food. So Merle took me into the forest an' left me there until I killed somethin' for supper."

Andrea fought to keep her expression carefully neutral. If she started passing judgement on his heinous older brother, he might clam up again and she was determined that he wasn't going to do that. Not after the past twenty-four hours. So she kept quiet and simple asked, "How old were you?"

He shrugged easily. "Can't remember. Old enough." He dropped to a crouch and gestured that Andrea do the same. "Guess you ain't never killed anythin' before." He murmured, beginning to move through the forest almost bent double. Somehow, he managed to move without making a sound.

"Not unless you count walkers and spiders." Andrea said, imitating Daryl and ignoring her knees when they groaned in protest.

"Well, you're about to cross it off your bucket list." Daryl said, moving behind a medium-sized collection of bushes.

"I don't have a bucket list." Andrea said, moving next to him. Heat radiated from his body, especially when he tugged her a little closer so they were both obscured by the bush. Gesturing to the space beyond their hiding place, he handed his crossbow to her.

"Come on." He said, indicating that she make the weapon ready for use. "You said ya wanted to track and hunt. You've done the trackin' part."

Swallowing, Andrea set down her pistol and took the crossbow in her hands. It felt heavy. Heavier than she remembered and she struggled to recollect all of Daryl's excellent instructions. Exhaling deeply, she parted the bushes as silently as she could, her eyebrows raising when she saw the doe, less than fifteen feet ahead of them.

"She's beautiful." She breathed, smiling softly as she took in the long, gangly legs, the elegant, long neck, the beautiful brown and white markings. Exhaling once more, she readied the crossbow and tried not to think about the fact that she was about to kill Bambi.

"Yeah." Daryl said, although his eyes were on Andrea and the look of pure concentration that flooded her face. "She is." He swallowed once before speaking, his breath low and throaty in her ear. "Remember: make the shot count." He said softly. "Ya won't have enough time to reload if ya miss and spook her. So breath, take your time and fire when you want to. We got all the time in the world."

_In, out, in, out, in, out,_ Andrea mentally counted the breaths she took, counted how many times it took to steady her breathing. It took longer than she would have liked, but the more she focused on the doe in her sights, the less she thought about her breathing, about Daryl's warm, reassuring presence next to her, about the world around them. She just thought about the task before her.

_In, out, in, out. _

She fired.

It was quieter than the gun, and had less recoil. It didn't feel like she was killing something. The small amount effort expended didn't make it seem real. Only when the doe cried out in pain and fell down did she realise just what she had done.

She'd made her first kill.

She went to put down the crossbow before Daryl stopped her, gesturing to the deer before them. "She ain't dead." He said softly. "You need to finish her off with your second bolt. Make sure she's really dead."

Andrea felt her stomach roll over at that. "You want me to shoot her again?" She asked, her gaze drifting to the keening animal beyond their hiding place.

"Ya don't want her to be in pain." Daryl said, gesturing to the remaining arrow. "So ya either shoot her again through the head or use my knife and slit-"

"I got it." Andrea reloaded the crossbow with the remaining arrow and, taking a deep breath, stood up and walked towards the dying deer.

Up close the deer was bigger and even more beautiful than Andrea had realised. Like her and Daryl, she was hot, sweat dampening her beautiful coat. She gazed up at Andrea with half-closed eyes and bleated softly, and Andrea felt her eyes well with tears. She had caused this, had done this to this animal. While she knew that without it, their camp could well go hungry, it didn't detract from the fact that she had just killed the beautiful creature before her.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, raising the crossbow. Once she was done, she turned around and promptly threw up into the bushes behind her.

###

"First kill's always the hardest." Daryl said kindly as they trekked back to camp, the doe slung over his shoulders while Andrea carried the backpack, the crossbow and the water. "Especially for you, bein' a city girl. Where I grew up ... we didn't know no different." He said. "Hunting and killing were parts of life. If you were poor like us, if ya didn't shoot something, ya often went hungry or ate nothin' but beans."

"Did you find it hard?" Andrea said, fighting a wave of nausea as the doe's head bumped against her arm. "Your first time, I mean?"

Daryl considered this. "First thing I killed was a squirrel." He said eventually. "Thing was mangy and straggly and probably as hungry as I was. Didn't really think about what it was 'cos I was so hungry. First time I killed a deer ... yeah." He said eventually. "Well, yeah and no. We needed to eat so ... I just did it."

They walked along in companionable silence for a little while, before he spoke again. "Ya picked this up real quick, Andrea." He said encouragingly. "I mean it. Just because ya found it hard didn't mean ya weren't good at it."

Andrea considered this. "My dad always used to say that succeeding at something you found hard just made you enjoy it all the more." She said. "Made you realise the value of hard work."

"Sounds like a smart guy, your old man." Daryl said. Not that he could empathise: both Merle and his dad had been hard work and he had never succeeded in really caring about either of them. He didn't know what it was to have a smart or caring father.

"Yeah, he was. He taught me how to fish, how to do rods and tackles. He ... most of my female friends couldn't talk to their dads, y'know. But me and my dad ... whenever something was bothering me we'd just go out on the lake and fish until I got whatever it was off my chest. Only one rule though: no crying in the boat." She said, feeling tears prickle her eyes when she thought about her parents.

Daryl was quiet for a long time. "Was difficult to care 'bout my brother." He said at length. "He made it hard work."

"I can imagine." Andrea said, holding her breath for several minutes before she asked, "Did Lucy make caring about her hard work?" She said tentatively.

Daryl sighed and gave her a look. "Ya still don't know when to mind your own business, huh?" He said.

She shrugged but gave him a coy smile. "I'm a lawyer. It's in my nature to pry. And then charge for it." She added.

"Well I ain't got no cash, so I guess I'm out."

Sensing that now wasn't the time for her to hear about Lucy Sanders, Andrea changed the subject. "You know, you never told me about the myth of the Chubacabra." She said after a few minutes' companionable silence.

"What do you mean?"

"Well ... most myths and legends have some point behind them." Andrea reasoned. "So what's the myth behind the goat sucker?"

"I don't know." Daryl said at length, his mind on his last experience with the mythical creature. "Why do legends and spirits exist in the first place?"

Andrea thought for a moment before answering. "A warning, maybe?" She offered. "Or a guide? Maybe they're there to guide us, goad us, protect us, point out something we've been searching for?"

"Like what?" Daryl snorted.

"You saw your Chubacabra while you were searching for Sophia." Andrea offered.

_And found Merle_, Daryl thought darkly. "Didn't find her though." He added.

Andrea shrugged. "Maybe it was there to help you find something else, instead?" She said, although she had no idea what that might be when Sophia was dead and Merle was missing. But then, what were any of them searching for, anymore?

Daryl didn't seem to have an answer for her, either, and the pair walked on in silence.

###

They were maybe five miles from camp when the forests around them began to move.

"What was that?" Andrea said, both of them stilling in their tracks as they heard the noise. She didn't know why she was asking; it could only be one thing. A familiar flash of fear went through her, as it always did when she thought about the walkers.

"What do ya think?" Daryl said dismally, dropping the doe on the floor, glad to be rid of its weight. He held out his hand and Andrea passed him his crossbow without comment, her hands already reaching for the gun at her hip. "How many bullets ya got?"

Andrea checked the magazine and swore under her breath. "Twelve." She did not sound pleased about the fact.

Daryl had to agree; it wasn't ideal but it was better than nothing. "Better make 'em count." He said.

Six walkers came through the forest at them: four men and two women who in life must have all come from the neighbouring farms and smallholdings. Their clothes were coveralls and plaid shirts not too dissimilar to Daryl's and their bodies would have been thick and robust before their current situation had rendered them husks of muscle wastage and never-ending hunger. Their pace quickened considerably when they saw Andrea and Daryl, although they looked a little confused when they saw them, as though they weren't really sure which prey to go for first.

Andrea didn't give them a chance. Squaring her shoulders and clasping her weapon just as Shane and Rick had taught her, she quickly dispensed with four of the six walkers while Daryl took care of the remaining two.

"Nice shootin'" He smirked, moving towards the downed walkers to retrieve his arrows.

"Thanks." Andrea said, tucking her gun into her waistband to conceal the way her hands trembled from adrenaline. That familiar high was beginning to fire her blood, just as it had after her and Shane's walker-hunting expedition in the suburbs just beyond Herschel's farm. She had made a mistake then, with him. She wasn't going to make that same mistake with Daryl, however much she might want to and however much she was convinced that it would be different with him.

She didn't have time to think, however, for four more walkers emerged from the woods, two in front and two behind her.

"Daryl!" Andrea shouted, yanking her pistol from her jeans to kill the two walkers swiftly closing in on her. The first one went down with ease but the second one required two chest and one head shots before it stayed down for good.

As soon as she was done, she turned to find Daryl being set upon by the two walkers. He had been caught unawares by them as he retrieved his arrows, but he killed the first one with ease using his hunting knife, the crossbow just out of his reach as the other advanced on him. He didn't need her help, Andrea knew that much. She knew that he had the situation under control; he was as skilled with his knife as he was with a crossbow or rifle, but when another walker came out of the forest and barrelled towards him, she acted on pure instinct. In two long strides she had grabbed the crossbow from the ground and brought it down hard on the final walker's head, just as Daryl jammed his knife into the other walker. The crossbow's thick stock made short work of the walker's decomposing head, and Andrea smashed one, two, three times until she was sure that the nightmare was going to stay down.

When reality slowly returned and the red haze of rage had subsided, she glanced up to find Daryl half sitting, half-lying on the floor, hunting knife still in hand, his shirt and neck splattered with blood.

"Thanks." He said softly, his eyes pinning her to the spot. "Guess this makes us even now, huh."

Acting on pure instinct, adrenaline and desire, Andrea leaned over, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pressed her mouth to his.

TBC ...

A/N: I couldn't find a whole lot about the myth of Chubacabra, so I improvised. Apologies if I've got it wrong!


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Thanks so much for the reviews guys! Its great that you're enjoying this story. Once S2.5 airs over here MoP will pick up again, even though its veered waaaaaaay off the TV storyline. But that's okay, right?

Cemeterydreamer: this might hit your other prompt of group matchmaking!

Words in brackets and italics are flashbacks.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

###

"Any sign of them?" Lori asked for what had to be the millionth time that afternoon, anxiously moving backwards and forwards and biting her lip so hard that even Rick's usually infinite patience with his wife was beginning to wear a little thin. He tried to ascribe her behaviour to nothing more than pregnancy hormones, although he couldn't remember what Lori was like when she had been pregnant with Carl. He remembered that she threw up a lot, that much was sure, but he wasn't aware of any nervous pacing habits that she had developed. But then, not only would she softly point out that he hadn't been around for much of her pregnancy because of work, but the last time she was growing a life inside of her, the world hadn't imploded.

Rick returned his attention to the rifle scope, blinking away the sweat. "Nothing." He said eventually.

"They've been gone best parts of thirty-six hours, man." Shane said, ever one to point out the obvious.

Rick ignored him. He couldn't quite bring himself to talk to his former partner again. Not really, anyway. Or at least, not yet.

"You think we should go look for them?" Lori asked.

Behind them, Maggie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "As if you would go look yourself when you could send Glenn." He ignored that, too. He wasn't in the mood to play peacekeeper. Not now. Or rather, perhaps not anymore. Maybe Daryl and Andrea had the right idea, taking off and leaving everything behind save for a note that said, 'Gone for a walk. I borrowed Glenn's backpack. Back later ~A.' Daryl hadn't even done that; it was blind supposition that they were together.

No-one wanted to think about what it might mean if they were apart. Not after Sophia.

Dale, ever the voice of reason and empathy, spoke up. "Neither of them are novices or children." He said, wincing at his own words. "Daryl in particular is the most experienced hunter and tracker I've ever seen, and Andrea's hardly incapable. She's the best shot we got. If they're out there, chances are they're alive and if they're together then I can't imagine a safer place to be, forest or not."

"Yeah, well in case you ain't noticed, neither one is particularly stable." Shane added.

"I don't think you're in any position to talk about that, Shane." Dale said flatly.

Rick sighed. One of the things he had noticed about life After the Barn was that the group had become a lot less willing to keep things bottled up. One of the advantages of this was that his group gossiped less. People let their emotions out. The culture of secrets that they had clung to for so long was gone, but in its place stood a horrible atmosphere, like everyone was sitting on a knife edge waiting for something to happen.

When he had found Andrea's note, carefully taped to the front door of the RV where someone was bound to spot it, he hadn't been surprised. He didn't blame Andrea for wanting to take off, would possibly have done the same if he wasn't the (self-proclaimed or designated by the others?) leader of their increasingly motley crew. And he sure as hell hadn't been surprised when they had found Daryl's tent also empty, the omnipresent crossbow and hunting knife gone and the sleeping bag long since cool. He hadn't been surprised when Daryl did not return at dinner, although he hoped that he and Andrea had somehow joined forces to do whatever it was they felt they needed to do, because if they were both missing then he honestly didn't know what they were going to do because he wasn't sure he could spend more time searching for people only to find them as soulless husks. He wasn't sure he could kill or abandon any more of their group. Not after Amy, Jim, Jackie or Sophia. Not even after Merle.

Movement in the trees ahead startled him and he called out. "Movement!" He shouted, his finger flexing on the rifle trigger.

"What do you see?" Shane asked, his shotgun already nestled securely against his shoulder. One thing Rick would say about Shane, even now, was that the man was a crack shot. He could give him a bolt action rifle from a museum and Shane would hit the bullseye.

The only problem was that Rick was no longer sure of exactly who Shane's targets were.

When he saw two familiar figures meander through the forest, he audibly exhaled. "Its them!" He shouted, his eye not leaving the scope as he watched the remaining pair of their group approach.

They were dishevelled, muddy and sweaty and looked to be covered in blood, but Daryl was holding a young deer across his shoulders while Andrea carried his crossbow and what appeared to be Glenn's borrowed backpack. They weren't talking but Rick didn't think that was because they weren't speaking or had fallen out. Their gait was relaxed and comfortable, despite the foot-wide distance between them. Both of them had bark, leaves and twigs in their hair. Obviously they had camped outside.

Shane was already running towards them by the time Rick shouldered the rifle, Dale, Glenn and the others in hot pursuit. "Where the hell have you two been?" Shane said.

"Told you." Andrea muttered to Daryl under her breath. She had expected shouting, demands and similarly parental admonishments from their group, and they did not disappoint. She just thought that it would be either Dale or Rick who started it, not Shane.

She wasn't sure just what she heard in Shane's voice as he approached. Jealousy, maybe? There was a time when she might have wanted that, even if only a little and probably because she wanted to feel something that wasn't nothing or a desire to be permanently away from this world. Now, as she listened to Shane's voice, she wasn't quite sure what she heard. Concern, certainly, but concern for what? For them? For the group? Or was it more aggression, a desire to know just where they had been for the sake of knowing? Either way, she found that she didn't much care.

To Shane she said, "I left a note. Not that its any of your business: you aren't my father, my brother or my husband."

"No, but we are the closest thing you have to family." Lori said as she came up next to Shane. "Both of you." She added. Daryl stared right through her and kept his own counsel.

_("Woah!" He exclaimed after her mouth assaulted his for the first time. "What the hell was that for?"_

"_I ... nothing!" She blurted out, and Daryl fought the urge to smile when he watched a real blush fight its way through her flushed cheeks. She looked as though the ground wanted to swallow her up whole. _

_They stared at each other for several seconds until Andrea stood up and handed Daryl his crossbow. "We should probably head back to camp." She said, feeling her cheeks flush one shade of crimson after the other.)_

"We brought back food." Andrea said, not that she needed to: Daryl wasn't carrying a dead deer on his shoulders because he fancied an back and upper body workout.

"I can see that!" Dale said, gesturing to Daryl that he help the younger man to carry the dead animal. The hunter shook his head, indicating that he had it under control and Dale left him to it.

"I left a note." Andrea repeated, although she had no real idea why. She was an adult, for Gods' sakes; were they worried that Lori and Carol weren't going to be able to do the laundry themselves? "I don't understand why this is such a big deal." She said as she looked from one anxious face to the other. Sophia aside, this was worse than having parents.

She carried on. "I went for a walk, Daryl followed me, we decided to track a deer overnight and Daryl taught me some hunting and tracking skills. What about that is unclear?"

_(The first thing Andrea realised about Daryl's mouth was that it was softer than she had originally thought. To be sure, she hadn't spent a whole lot of time thinking about what it would be like to kiss Daryl Dixon, but the more time she had spent with him in the forest, the more she had wondered just what was hiding beneath that tough-guy veneer. He obviously had a heart and was carrying around some major baggage from his past (but then, she reasoned, who wasn't?), and as she saw the walker approach him her first thought wasn't just 'I don't want him to get bit,' it was also 'I don't want to not know about Lucy Sanders. I don't want him to die without me knowing about her, what happened between them. I don't want him to die with me not knowing about what happened with Merle. I don't want him to die without him knowing about Amy. I don't want him to die without him knowing that I want to know these things.' It had been pure instinct. Just like kissing him had been. _

_But his lips had been soft and warm and surprised. Very surprised. And for just a split second, before rationality and surprise reasserted itself, she felt him kiss her back. And it had been pretty intense.)_

"We were just worried." Carol said softly.

"Ya'll didn't need to be worried." Daryl said, unsurprised bemusement written across his face. Clearly he too was unsurprised by the group's reaction.

"So what did you find?" Glenn asked. "Aside from the deer, I mean."

"I went on a hike." Andrea said, her eyes straying to Daryl for the first time since the forest. "Thought I'd try and find Daryl's Chupacabra."

T-Dog's brow furrowed. "The goat-sucker?" He asked.

"Yup."

"You know that's a myth, right?" Shane said sceptically. "Damned waste of time. Woulda been better stayin' in camp."

Daryl shrugged nonchalantly, as far as that was possible with a dead deer on his shoulders. "I know what I saw." He said adamantly. While his words were directed at the group, his gaze never left hers.

_("I'm sorry, alright." She blurted out some ten minutes later, unable to take the awkward, dense silence any longer._

_He looked at her with a cautious expression. "Should give a guy warnin' when you're gonna do somethin' like that." He said eventually. _

_She glared at him. He was mocking her and enjoying every minute of it. "Trust me Daryl, the next time I try to kiss you, I'll take out an ad in a newspaper or announce it from the rooftops."She snapped. _

_They glared at each other for several seconds before Daryl took point, and Andrea was sure that she heard him mutter, "Didn't think it was that goddamned bad."_

_Or it could have just been her imagination.)_

Andrea shook her head and began to walk to the camp, a blush colouring her cheeks. "And I said I believed you." She reminded him.

###

"Daryl tells me that we have you to thank for tonight's feast." Rick said as he sat down next to Andrea, who was cleaning Daryl's crossbow bolts while he gutted and skinned the doe.

Andrea felt a flush rise up her cheeks as she worked the dirt and blood out of the bolts. It was therapeutic work and the least she could do after all he had taught her. "He did, huh."

"He did." Rick affirmed. "He was very complimentary about your hunting skills."

Andrea quirked a brow and glanced up from her task. "Okay, now I _know_ you're lying." She laughed.

Rick joined in. It was the first time that she had heard him laugh since Sophia's disappearance. "I may have embellished a little." He admitted.

"A little?" Andrea said, setting down one arrow and reaching for another, gently touching the bolts in her hand. They were beginning to look a little worn from overuse and she realised that he was going to have to get some more if he wanted the bow to continue to be useful.

"Okay, a big little." Rick conceded.

"Daryl's the most monosyllabic man I've ever met." Andrea said. "I can't imagine that he's particularly verbose or expansive with his compliments." Which was true: words like 'good' and 'that's it' were high praise from him. Which was why she had been so shocked by his willing admission in the forest after they had killed the deer.

"Well, he did say that you killed the doe." Rick admitted. "And said that with some practice, you'd be as good with the bow as you are with a gun."

Andrea was still unconvinced, but chose to keep quiet.

Rick spoke again. "How did you two get on, out there overnight?"

_("So why'd you do it?" He asked at length. They had several more miles to walk, after all, and they had to fill the silence with something other than ground-swallowing humiliation._

"_Why did I do what?" She asked impatiently. _

_Daryl raised his eyebrows and gestured to their mouths using his hands. _

_Andrea shrugged. She could already feel herself getting flustered. "I don't know." She admitted finally. "Guess I just wanted to feel something, or rather, act on something I felt. Killing walkers gives me a rush." She admitted shamefully. _

_He took this in with a single nod. "Same kinda rush you got when you went out with Shane?" He asked flatly.)_

Andrea's hands stilled on the crossbow bolt. She could feel a flush working her way up her cheeks and prayed that Rick thought it was just the heat. "Fine. Why'd you ask?" She said carefully.

Rick stared over her shoulder to the man behind her. "Daryl took Sophia's ... death pretty hard." He said. "What with Merle gone ... He doesn't talk about it."

"What would be the point?" Andrea asked softly, before adding, "In case you hadn't noticed, Daryl doesn't speculate on the what-ifs."

_(Andrea stopped at that. "That's none of your business." She snapped. "In fact, let's just forget it. Let's forget the walkers, the deer, the kiss. In fact, let's just forget everything. I'm embarrassed, and you're clearly freaking out, so let's just pretend that this whole exchange never happened. Really, it would mean that I'd have to stop trying to burrow into the ground and we can just go back to being Daryl and Andrea. Here, I'll even use my Lawyer Voice so you can yell at me a bunch."_

"_I'm not freaking out." He said quietly. _

_That got her attention. "Well you're doing a pretty fair imitation of it." She said. _

_He stared at her carefully before asking, "Did you kiss me because you wanted to, or because you had just killed those walkers?"_

"_I-" Andrea opened her mouth, but to her immense surprise, no words came out. She was so blindsided by his question that she couldn't formulate a response._

_Daryl gave her a sad half-smile. "Thought so." He said, moving off ahead of her.)_

"I noticed." Rick said dryly.

Andrea was quiet for a few minutes before adding, "Can I make a suggestion?" She asked, before amending, "Well, two suggestions."

Rick looked surprised, but nodded. "Be my guest." He said.

Andrea paused, collecting her thoughts. "Teach Carol and Lori about shooting." She said eventually.

Rick's face paled. "Lori doesn't like guns, particularly around Grimes men." He said, before adding, "We tend to get shot."

Andrea shrugged. "Doesn't matter." She said. "Because in this world, she needs to use a gun, or a crossbow, or something. She needs to be able to defend herself. And Carl, if she needs to." She said adamantly. "It isn't enough that you and Shane and Daryl and Glenn know about these things. What if something were to happen to you and we were to get separated? We can't keep doing what we're doing."

Rick considered this. "I'll talk to Lori." He said finally. "And Shane." He added.

Andrea shook her head. "Daryl would make a better teacher." She said.

Rick's eyebrows shot into his hairline at that. "Daryl Dixon as a teacher?" He exclaimed. "Something tells me he ain't the teaching kind."

Andrea shrugged as she slid the arrows into their quiver. "He taught me how to fire this thing, how to hunt deer, how to track." She said. "All in the space of less than thirty-six hours. Still can't see him as a teacher?"

Rick gave her a smile. "You two got tight while you were out camping, huh?"

_(They were less than a half-mile from camp when Andrea stopped Daryl, putting her hand on his arm, which was thick, solid and warm to the touch. "Do you remember what I said to you that night when we were looking for Sophia?" She asked. "About me not knowing if I wanted to live?"_

"_Yeah." He said warily, his gaze drifting to the gun at her hip. "Ya ain't planning' on blowing your brains out, are ya?"_

_Andrea shook her head. "I don't know if I want to live or not." She said honestly. "Sometimes ... sometimes I wonder why I should want to, or what we're fighting for, running for – why we're out here in this forest, searching for something. I don't know if I want to live. But one thing I do know? Is that when I saw that walker come to you, I didn't want you to die."_

_He seemed to consider this. "Huh." He said. _

"_Huh is right." She replied, giving him her own version of his half-smile. "And I want to do this now."She said, touching her lips to his once again.)_

"No." Andrea said defensively. "I just ... he's more than what you see on the surface." She said. "I know we all carry our demons around inside of us, but Daryl ..." She shook her head. "He's abrasive and he's short-tempered and we spent more time fighting than anything else, but ..." She shook her head again. "Forget it." She said finally. "Just ... just think about what I said."

Rick regarded her closely for a second, before gently touching her arm. She smelled just how she looked: like the forest, sweat, the dirt. Unsurprising when he considered where she had spent the night. But somehow, he found that it suited her. "Good to have you back, Andrea." He said finally, throwing over his shoulder, "Although next time, tell us when you're going to go off on an overnight nature walk!"

###

"Saw you and Officer Friendly havin' a nice chat." Daryl said as Andrea approached him. His gloves were bloody, his lowered hunting knife dripping bright red blood onto the grass at his feet. The doe hung before him, her entrails dripping into the yellow plastic bucket that he had borrowed from Herschel's farm, blood and guts spilling over the plaster-splattered plastic.

"He wanted to know what we'd done in the forest all this time." Andrea said.

Daryl paled at that. "And what did you tell him?" He asked.

_(Their second kiss was different from the first. It was longer, deeper, more intimate. But it was tentative, as though both of them were unsure. Her lips moved over his and at length, she felt his respond to hers. They were soft and supple yet clumsy, as though he hadn't kissed anyone for a long time. Having the deer on his back probably didn't help, either. But all around her she felt his smell engulf her: the smells of the forest, of dirt, of fresh wet sweat that slicked up against her skin. It was enticing and she found herself breathing in great lungfuls of his scent. When they broke apart for air. Andrea's entire body was tingling. To her immense pleasure and surprise, Daryl licked his lips once they broke apart. _

"_We should probably head back." She murmured._

"_Guess so." He said, gesturing that she should lead the way.)_

Andrea shrugged. "That we'd talked about hunting, tracking – why did you tell him I was good with a crossbow?" She asked.

He shrugged. "Cos ya are." He said honestly.

###

"What do you think's going on there?" Lori asked Carol as she watched Daryl and Andrea's interactions from their position by the RV.

Carol barely glanced up from the vegetables that she was methodically peeling and chopping, her mind trying to focus solely on the task before her. It was better than letting her mind wander. "Who?" She asked, looking up to find Daryl and Andrea talking to each other in hushed tones. She couldn't see Andrea's face but she could see Daryl's. He was watching the blonde woman intently, his face unreadable.

"I have no idea." She said eventually.

"They spent all night in the forest together." Maggie supplemented as she dropped down next to them, more vegetables in her hands.

"How do you know?" Lori asked.

Maggie shrugged. "Glenn told me." She said simply. "He said that they tracked deer for miles and brought it back here. Got set upon by walkers not too far from here." She joined Lori in watching the couple standing by the gutted deer. "You think ... Nah. Forget it." She said, shaking her head.

"No, go on." Carol said, setting down the peeler and watching Maggie carefully. "What were you going to say?"

"Well ..." Maggie paused, clearly internalising her own thoughts. "I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but Daryl's kinda hot." She said.

Lori's eyes almost bugged out at that comment. Carol pressed her lips together and said nothing.

"Daryl?" Lori spluttered. "Hot?"

"Hear me out before y'all shoot me down!" Maggie exclaimed. "I'm not saying that I think he's marriage material or anything, I'm just saying ... he's a good-looking guy. Or he would be, if he weren't so mad all the time."

"Well he has good reason to be angry." Carol said bluntly. "You never met his brother, Maggie, but we did, and Merle was nothing but trouble. Daryl's had a bad life. He should be mad at the world."

"Did Glenn mention if anything had happened between them?" Lori asked, leaning towards Maggie. Glenn _always_ knew what was going on.

Maggie shook her head. "Just that Daryl caught up to Andrea yesterday and they tracked the deer." She squinted as she watched Andrea walk away from Daryl, smirking when she saw the way Daryl's gaze followed the retreating woman. "You think there's anything going on between them?" She said.

"And what if there is?" Carol said, with more force than she originally intended. "Daryl's a good man, every bit as good as Glenn or Rick. And they both need someone in their life." Overcome with emotion, she put her hands to her face and began to cry.

Lori sighed sadly and squeezed Carol's shoulder. "I think we all do, honey." She said, a plan forming in her mind.

TBC...


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Author's Note: So after everything that's happened in recent episodes, this chapter seems a little bit jarring to me, but it fits with the rest of this fic so I hope that you like it.

I'm also so sorry for not updating sooner. I've recently developed RSI in my right elbow and forearm and its been quite painful. Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my imagination, I wrote this for fun with no copyright infringement intended.

Andrea was stripped down to her underwear and the hot shower had filled the cramped bathroom with steam when there was a knock on the Greene bathroom door. Even though she knew that walkers wouldn't be as polite as to knock before they broke down the door, her hand reached for the pistol that rested atop the bathtub.

"What is it?" She called out, her other hand lingering on the door handle.

"Its Maggie!" The eldest Greene daughter called from the other side of the bathroom.

Andrea exhaled a deep breath and tried not to let her temper get the better of her. All the wanted was five minutes' peace and quiet, away from the group. But she was in Maggie's house, using her water, towels and toiletries, so she wasn't in a position to say anything. So she eased the lock free and inched the door open.

"What's up, guys?" She said, surprised to find Carol and Lori flanking Maggie, their arms full of what seemed to be clothes and bottles.

Carol thrust something soft and pale into Andrea's arms. "Thought you could do with some clean clothes after spending so long outside in the woods." She said softly. Like usual her face was red and blotchy from crying, but there was something in her eyes now, something that Andrea hadn't seen since Sophia went into the woods: hope. Andrea wasn't sure why it was suddenly there now, wasn't sure what had prompted this renewal, but it was that new look in Carol's eye which made Andrea's hand engage around the material and willingly accept the gift.

Lori and Maggie exchanged a look before they gave her a collection of bottles that Andrea recognised as travel-sized shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. "We found these." Maggie said awkwardly. "I, uh … I have allergies to stuff that's, y'know … real fragranced."

"And since the baby it makes me feel sick." Lori added. Carol offered no excuse as to why she didn't want the toiletries, but the three women almost chorused, "We thought you'd like 'em." It wasn't so much a question as a statement, and their intent gazes pinned Andrea to the floor.

"Uh ….. okay." Andrea said as she took the small bottles, shaking her head in confusion as the women were gone almost as soon as they had arrived. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate their generosity – far from it – but she just didn't understand their insistence: what did they care how she smelled unless it was real bad?

When the smells of jasmine and lavender hit the steam, she decided that she wasn't going to look a gift shampoo bottle in the mouth.

She stayed in the shower for longer than was really necessary, luxuriating in the simple pleasure of washing her hair with shampoo rather than the soap they had been using. She didn't blame Maggie or Lori for surrendering the toiletries; they were pungent but after so long of smelling of generic 'clean' it was a simple pleasure to feel her hair made soft by synthetic conditioner and to smell the scent of the shower gel long after she had killed the shower faucet.

Predictably, it was Daryl who jolted her out of her pleasant fiction.

"Andrea!" He banged on the door. "Y'aright in there? You been in there hours, girl!"

"Stop exaggerating." Andrea said to the closed door, rolling her eyes as she towelled herself off with a towel so clean it was stiffly standing to attention. Once she was satisfied that her skin was damp rather than wet, she quickly rubbed some moisturiser – another bottle from Lori – into her skin, and picked up the items of clothing that Carol had given her. It was a shirt of some kind on coral pink. It definitely wasn't hers, nor was it something that she recognised, but it was gathered around the waist, with sleeves that rested just on her shoulders and it fit well enough over her cropped jeans and sandals. Her hair was still wet, but she dried it as best she was able and let her fingers linger in the strands, marvelling at their new softness. As she stood and surveyed her new look in the mirror, she barely recognised the clean, moisturised, scented face staring back at her.

"Lori asked me to come get ya." He said through the door, and Andrea heard her confusion in his voice.

"Lori?" She said. "She was just here, didn't say anything to me."

"Well, maybe she just remembered."

"Since when were you Lori Grimes' messenger boy? You got a little sign on your shirt with UPS on it?" Andrea opened the door then to find Daryl standing on the other side of it. He took a step back when the steam and several fragrant smells tumbled out.

"Jeez!" He exclaimed as he began coughing. "What the hell's that smell?"

Andrea shrugged. "Lori and Maggie gave me some toiletries they couldn't use." She said, nonplussed. "Figured that since I'd been washing my hair in nothing but soap I'd use them. Why?" She asked as she saw his nose wrinkle. "What's wrong with you?"

"Smells like where unwanted flowers go to die." He said, taking another step back even as he surreptitiously appraised her. The smell wasn't bad, it was just way too strong. Andrea smelled like one of those women who doused themselves in expensive, heavy perfume which hung around for hours and suffocated everyone. She smelled much better when she didn't use anything. But her hair was clean and her skin cleaner and she was wearing a shirt he hadn't seen before which really suited her. And he blinked: once, twice, three times.

Andrea folded her arms stubbornly when it became obvious that he was staring. "Well excuse me if I don't want to smell like deer shit and dead squirrel all the time." She said.

"Y'know, walkers'll smell ya a mile off, smellin' like that." He said.

Andrea glared at him as she pushed past him. "Well maybe they'll just mistake me for an unwanted flower graveyard and leave me alone." She retorted as she pushed past him.

"I hope ya didn't use all the hot water!" He called after her.

"Does Andrea look different to you?" Glenn asked as he and T-Dog took turns basting the deer that Daryl and Andrea had brought back.

T-Dog looked up from his task of poking the dead animal with one of Herschel's cooking instruments and frowned. "She looks pissed to me." He said as he watched Andrea descend the steps of the Greene farmhouse and stalk towards them. "But she has just spent the past forty-eight hours with The Great Outdoorsman. "

"Huh." Glenn said, a blush colouring his cheeks as Andrea walked past them. She looked cleaner than usual, he reflected. Cleaner and …. More stylish. She'd done something with her hair and her skin almost glowed and she was wearing a shirt that he was pretty sure wasn't hers (not that he kept an inventory of his own clothes, never mind the others', but they all had a finite supply of clothes and he was pretty sure that he had seen everything that everyone had to wear). She looked …. Nice. Pretty, actually.

"What does that mean?" T-Dog asked.

"Nothing." Glenn said quickly.

T-Dog gave Glenn a look. "Uh-huh, man. Its never 'nothing' with you. You always know something. So spill."

Glenn felt his cheeks flush. "Nothing!" He insisted. "I know nothing …. Maggie might have said …. Something." He said at length, finally wilting under T-Dog's gaze. "Something about how maybe Daryl and Andrea might have something going on."

T-Dog's eyebrows shot into his forehead at that. "Andrea and Daryl Dixon?" He speculated. "You serious?"

"Is it that far-fetched?" Glenn asked, his eyes flickering to Andrea. "I mean, they're kinda similar, if you think about it."

T-Dog looked at Glenn as though he had lost his mind. "Man, I'll be the first to admit that Daryl saved my ass twice in the last week, both times when he didn't need to. He ain't like his brother but …. Unless you see something I don't, I can't picture Andrea the city lawyer with the Benz and the sat-nav with Mister Outdoors."

Glenn shook his head. "Do you think those distinctions really matter any more?" He asked softly.

T-Dog stole another glance at Andrea before his eyes darted back to the house, where Daryl had emerged and was standing on the back porch holding what could only be his dirty laundry. Like Andrea, he had showered and changed clothes – another pair of pants and ripped plaid shirt – his hair was wet from the shower and the hot water had washed away the dirt and sweat that was now commonplace among the hunter. But that wasn't what T-Dog was looking at.

He was looking at the way that Daryl was looking at Andrea.

"Well I'll be damned." He said softly, nudging Glenn with his elbow. "Think your girlfriend might have a point. Dixon's checkin' her out. Look."

"You think something happened out there in the forest?" Glenn asked, the two men awkwardly turning away from the approaching Dixon as he descended the stairs and began to walk towards them.

"They were out there for awhile." T-Dog said.

"What you two talkin' about?" Daryl said as he approached them.

"Nothing!" Glenn and T-Dog chorused.

_Okay, so people in the camp are officially acting weirder than usual_, Shane decided as he observed the scene unfolding from atop the RV. Dale has wanted to get some of the deer meat now that it was cooked, and Shane had been glad to get away from, well, everyone so he had volunteered to take over watch while the others ate.

The only problem was that they were acting so weird it made keeping watch impossible.

It had started out innocuously enough: the members of the group had thanked Daryl and Andrea for bringing back the deer (Daryl was an unpredictable sonovabitch who Shane would have taken great pleasure in locking up in another life, but Shane had to admit that the group would have been far worse off without the younger Dixon's hunting skills). True to form, Carol was distributing the plates of food (Shane made a mental note to check that Dale hadn't poisoned his plate. It would be just like the crafty old bastard) to those who were seated around the fire and still-cooking animal (seriously? They thought that cooking a whole deer was a good idea with a forest full of walkers? And Rick went along with it? Shane shook his head at his former partner's idiocy), finally taking her own seat once the others had been fed. Only Andrea and Daryl remained unseated, the former helping herself to water from the RV while the latter poked and prodded at the meat using a cooking utensil from the Greene farmhouse. Finally, he was done and took one of the last vacant spots, on an upturned, felled log, next to T-Dog.

Andrea came out of the RV then bearing a glass of water and her plate. She moved to the closest available spot, which was next to Lori and Carol, but didn't appear to have any luck for Lori shook her head and gestured to the other seats, where Maggie was sat with Glenn. Shane was too far away to hear anything other than hushed voice-sounds, but he deduced that there was some kind of seating dispute going on. It was like being back in high school all over again, where the cool kids told the unpopular kid to find their own table. Amused, Shane watched Andrea move towards Glenn and Maggie, only for the exact same situation to happen. What was new was that Maggie and Glenn exchanged surreptitious glances with Lori and Carol as they did so.

_Huh_. Shane thought as he watched Andrea, who by this point was probably frustrated and a little confused, move down the line and obviously cajole T-Dog into moving. _Well how about that: they're in this together_. _If only they'd apply their group thinking to staying alive, we might just make it out of this mess intact._

It appeared that T-Dog was also in on whatever plan the group had concocted, because he did move, but rather than move closer to Daryl, who was watching the whole exchange unfold with a bemused expression, T-Dog moved closer to Glenn, almost squishing the young man off the end of the bench. The spot next to Daryl, however was wide open and it was with a certain degree of fanfare and a not-inconsiderable amount of exasperation that Andrea finally sat down. Only when Daryl handed her the last of what appeared to be mashed potato (Shane's eyes had always been better than his ears) did she finally crack a smile and realisation dawned on Shane as he saw the coy smiles ripple around the remaining members of the group.

_Huh. They're playing matchmaker between Nature-Boy and Lawyer-Girl. _

He laughed out loud at that.

"What's so funny?" Dale said as the older man's head crested the top of the RV. As promised, he bore two plates of food and Shane was impressed that he had managed to scale the top of the camper with a rifle as well as the food.

"Just people-watchin'." Shane said, nodding in cautious thanks as Dale handed him the food complete with a dark look.

"Well, fell free to people-watch down on the ground if you want." Dale said pointedly.

Shane emitted a burst of surprised laughter and threw up his hands. "Fine, fine, I know where I'm not wanted." He paused as he descended the RV. "How long have Daryl and Andrea been doing …. Whatever?" He asked.

If Dale was surprised then he didn't show it. "Why do you care so much?" He asked.

Shane shrugged. "Didn't realise her standards had slipped so low." He said.

Dale glared at Shane. "I'd think very carefully about where you're going with this, Shane." He said. "Because I think that Daryl is twice the man that you're ever be."

Shane didn't say anything to that, but he couldn't help but let his eyes wander to the campsite as he stalked off to take the rest of his patrol.

TBC …..


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Disclaimer: The Walking Dead belongs to Robert Kirkman and AMC. I just wrote this for fun with no copyright infringement intended.

It's been a while with this story, I know. But it's almost there now.

###

Lori, Maggie and Carol took a softly-softly approach.

Glenn and T-Dog preferred to speculate.

Rick had other things to worry about.

Dale was different.

"How was your hike, Andrea?" He said as he found Andrea sharpening her knife under the shade of a large oak tree. Even the early morning sun held fierce heat.

Andrea squinted as she glanced up at her self-appointed father-figure. "Fine." She said, soon returning her attention to her task. "It was fine."

"The deer you brought back raised everyone's spirits." Dale sat down next to her and stretched out his legs. He wasn't as young as he used to be, and the heat was beginning to get to him. He missed air conditioning.

"We figured that everyone was sick of squirrels."

Dale laughed. "You got that right."

They sat together in a quiet kind of companionship, the only sounds the scrape-scrape-scrape of Andrea's knife sharpener. Andrea could feel Dale's gaze on the side of her face, his sharp eyes taking in every curve of her face, every line on her skin, the tan she'd acquired since the world went to hell.

"Spit it out, Dale." She said at length.

He chuckled. "Do I have to have a purpose to come sit with you, now?"

She tipped her head. "Okay. I deserved that one."

Dale shrugged. "Feel like we haven't talked all that much recently."

"There hasn't been a whole lot to say."

"We should never underestimate the power of silence." Dale said as he removed and began to wind his watch. "My wife and I could do that." He said, his eyes on the young woman he had adopted as his daughter. "Just sit there, not needing to talk. Few people in this life appreciate that."

"Sometimes a comfortable silence is the hardest thing to have with someone." Andrea said, her mind on Daryl.

Dale laughed. "Never a truer word." He said. He was quiet for some minutes before he spoke again. "I miss my wife."

Andrea gave him a sympathetic look. "I know." She said. "I miss Amy."

"Grief is hard." Dale said, his eyes on the man who was pitching his tent aways from the rest of the group. "How's Daryl handling things after Sophia?"

"I have no idea – maybe you should ask Carol."

Dale shook his head. "I think I'd be better off asking you." He said. When Andrea opened her mouth to protest his suggestion, he held up his hand and continued. "He followed you into the woods when you went missing." He said. "He stayed with you for nearly two days, taught you how to track, how to hunt. He said you killed that deer almost single-handedly."

"You make me sound like wonder woman." Andrea rolled her eyes. "He showed me a few things, nothing major. I couldn't find a deer on my own if I tried."

"But you guys must have talked about something."

"No." Andrea said, her minds on near-constant arguments and Word Association and fierce kisses. "We didn't say much actually."

"You had a comfortable silence."

"Stop it, Dale." A smile twitched around the corners of Andrea's mouth.

Dale held up his hands in mock defence. "Stop what?"

"Stop fishing." Andrea said.

"I'm not fishing."

"Yeah, you are. You might not be as overt about it as Maggie, Lori and Carol, but you're still fishing."

"Fishing implies that I'm speculating without reason." Dale said, his eyes gleaming. "It implies covert questioning. There's nothing covert about this: are you attracted to Daryl?"

Andrea's mouth literally fell open. "That's none of your business!"

"I know."

"So where do you get off asking me about it?"

"I'm not 'getting off' on it." Dale said evenly. "I'm just asking a question."

Andrea discarded her knife and sharpener and gave Dale a steely look. "Spare me the lecture that I know is coming."

"What lecture?"

"The lecture about how Daryl's bad for me." Andrea said, watching the older man's face carefully. "The lecture where you tell me to watch myself, that he's trouble, that he's not a good man and he'll hurt me, that-"

"I think you're being a little presumptuous." Dale began to laugh, which served to make Andrea only angrier. "Andrea, I'll admit that I wasn't a fan of the Dixons when I first met them, and certainly not of Merle, but Daryl … he went out after you, yesterday." He said. "And he stayed, stayed with you through the night. He searched for Sophia and nearly lost his life, saved T-Dog's life. He's proved how valuable he is - why would I think he's wrong for you?" He squinted against the light. "Unless you think he's bad for you?"

Andrea was very quiet for a moment. "I think he's one of the best men I've ever known."

"So why do you care if I was about to give you a lecture?"

"Well, where you?"

"No."

Andrea studied him carefully before saying, "Well … okay, then."

They were quiet for a few minutes before Dale spoke. "I won't give you a lecture." He said. "But if I may give you some advice?"

"Something tells me that you're going to anyway."

Dale leaned forwards as he spoke, twisting his wedding ring around his ring finger. "My wife and I …. I waited a long time before I asked her out." He said. "I waited for … I don't know. At the time, it seemed important: my pride, my embarrassment, my fear of rejection. But … our time together was so fleeting, so precious that I'd give anything to go back, to go back and realise that none of my fears were important, that I'd let my fear come between those extra months. And now that she's gone …" He trailed off, unable to finish the words he wanted to say, but Andrea caught his meaning: life is fleeting. Make the most of it.

"I'm gonna go get some water." She said, standing up and tucking her knife into her belt. "You want to come with?"

Dale shook his head. "I'm good, thanks." He said, his fingers touching his wedding ring, lost in memories long since gone.

###

If Dale's approach was direct, it was nothing compared to Shane's.

"You and Andrea got anything you want to tell us about your little nature walk?" He said as he approached Daryl.

Daryl paused his task – erecting his tent in a new spot aways from the main camp site – and squinted at the former cop, standing above him with his shotgun nestled in his arms.

"Say what?"

Shane shrugged, his gaze flickering between Daryl and the tree line. "You guys were out there two days and a night, man." He said.

"Don't quite know why that's any of your business." Daryl began to pound his tent stakes into the ground with more force than was really necessary.

"You didn't stumble across no walkers, survivors, food?"

Daryl gave him a knowing look. "You ain't talking about that and we both know it." He said. "Why don't you quit wastin' both our time and just say it?"

Shane snorted but returned Daryl's gaze. "Alright, fine. Saw the little mating ritual last night, by the fire. You and Andrea a happy couple now?"

"I got no idea what you're talking about." Daryl said. "Why don't you go on off and carry on playin' cop someplace else and leave me be?"

"Everything okay, guys?" Andrea appeared before the two, men, her water canteen in her hand. Her gaze flickered between the two men and she fought the urge to sigh. Tension filled the space around her. _What were they fighting about now_, she wondered, although she had a pretty good guess. Shane always had been too observant for his own good.

Shane gave Andrea a leery look. "Just askin' Daryl what you kids found in the woods." He said. "No chupacabra, I'll bet."

"I know what I saw!" Daryl barked.

"We ran into some walkers yesterday morning." Andrea tried to diffuse the situation before the two men came to blows. "Eight, maybe ten of them."

"We took 'em out."

"Together? Well, that's kinda sweet." Shane said, a smirk crossing his face.

It was all the encouragement that Daryl needed.

Dropping the mallet, he launched himself at Shane, the two men falling to the ground in a tussle of arms and legs. He winced as he felt Shane's boot connect with his jaw, but landed several punches of his own, wincing as his knuckles absorbed the impact.

"Stop it!" Andrea exclaimed as she waded into the fray, trying to avoid the punches and kicks that were being exchanged.

"What is going on here!" Lori's voice broke up the fight as she and Rick came down on them, Rick pulling the two men apart, his arms at Shane's as he held his former partner back.

"You need to put a leash on that pup of yours!" Daryl retorted, shrugging off Andrea's helping hand.

"You guys want to tell me just what's goin' on here?" Rick said, his gaze darting between his former partner, who was wiping the blood from his jaw and the tracker, who bore a nasty boot print on his forehead.

"Your boy needs to mind his own business." Daryl said, putting his hand to his head. He had a headache. They had been back at camp for less than twenty-four hours and he already had a headache. They really weren't good for his zen.

"We were talking about our hunting expedition." Andrea said firmly. "Shane asked about what we'd found out there."

"And he didn't like your answer?" Lori quipped to Daryl, who glared right back.

"Daryl was telling Shane about the walkers we ran across." Andrea said, ignoring the accusation in Lori's voice. It made her blood angry. Of course Lori would assume that Daryl started it, until she realised that until relatively recently, she would have made the same mistake.

That had Rick's attention. "Walkers?" He said. "How many?"

"Eight, maybe ten." Andrea repeated Daryl's answer. "We took care of them, though."

Rick considered this. "Been runnin' across more and more stragglers." He said. "Once that river dries up come winter, this place may be compromised."

"Told you we should have gone to Benning." Shane said as Rick finally released him and he shook himself free, taking a step away from his former partner and his wife. "I said it then an' I'll say it now: it's a good plan."

Rick shook his head and began to list the reasons why they shouldn't leave the farm, but Daryl wasn't listening. Instead, he stalked off towards the forest, pausing only to pick up his crossbow. He needed to get away from here, from this place, from their baggage and their questions and their endless fucking chatter. Didn't they appreciate silence?

He tried to ignore the footfalls that followed him. Of course she was following him.

"Leave me be, Andrea." He said, not breaking stride.

"You need a doctor." She didn't break stride, either.

"Well, we only got a vet and I ain't a cow or a horse, so I'll manage."

"Why are you being like this?"

"Like what?"

"You know like what. Like this."

"This is how I am, sweetheart – haven't you noticed?"

Andrea grabbed his arm and stopped his retreat from the camp. "Daryl." She said softly. It was as though the last two days had never happened. Was this what coming back to the camp did to him, to them?

He paused and turned to look at her. "What?" He said.

She took a tentative step closer, stepping into his personal space. He took a step back and she tried not to look hurt. "Was it only the night before last we slept in that tree?" She said, her eyes flickering to the boot mark on his head. "Let me take a look at that." She said.

"It's nothing." He insisted. "It's not like I've never had a kicking before."

"What did Shane say to you?"

Daryl felt his cheeks colour. "He wanted to know about the woods." He said. "What we'd done."

Andrea felt her cheeks colour a little. "And what did you tell him?"

Daryl ground his teeth. Figures. "I didn't kiss and tell if that's what you're askin'." He turned on his heel and began to walk deeper into the forest.

"I'm not." Andrea said, almost running to keep up with him. "Daryl, I know you wouldn't do that."

"You don't know anythin' about me!" He barked. "So don't try to pretend like ya do!"

"I know that you like reading." She said, his words stopping him mid-stride. "I know you like people to think you're dumb because it gives you an advantage when they find out that you're smart, probably smarter than most of the people here. I know you don't give up on people and you feel like you failed Sophia. I know you always bring enough food back for us all, even though we're nothing to you. I know you could have gone off to search for Merle and you didn't. I know that there was a girl in your home town called Lucy Sanders that you don't talk about because you cared for her and she left. And I know that yesterday, you felt something when we kissed." She was close to him when she had finished her little speech, and he was staring down at her like an animal ready to bolt.

Eventually, he straightened his back, his eyes flickering to the camp, barely visible through the lush foliage. "Go back to camp, Andrea." He said. "Go back to camp and leave me be. Don't be thinkin' that your little speech is gonna change me, make me somethin' I'm not. I ain't the redeeming kind."

Andrea glared at him. "Why can't you admit that you like me, at least just a little?"

"You ain't exactly admittin' anything either." He retorted.

"You are the most stubborn, argumentative asshole I've ever met." Andrea said eventually, shaking her head.

"Stubborn?" Daryl echoed. "Ya think I'm stubborn? Girl, you even looked in a mirror recently if ya want to see stubborn?"

"I am not stubborn!" Andrea retorted, even as she knew the words coming out of her mouth were a lie. She was being stubborn but dammit so was he! She closed her eyes and thought back to forty-eight hours' previously. How had things changed so much in that short time? At what point, over tracking and crossbows and Chupacabras and Word Association and never ending bickering had they somehow ended up here?

Daryl actually laughed at that. "Why is everythin' such a damned uphill struggle with you?" He said.

"You think I'm an uphill struggle?" Andrea retorted. "Oh please. Daryl, you are the dictionary definition of hard work!"

He shook his head and muttered something under his breath, something that Andrea barely managed to catch.

"What was that?" She said, her eyes narrowing.

"Nothin'." Daryl said, turning on his heel. "Forget it."

Andrea laughed as she followed him down the hill, not bothering to lower her voice. "See, this is why I should have just kept my big mouth shut!" She exclaimed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Daryl said, stopping and turning to hard that she barrelled off his chest.

"It means," Andrea said, folding her arms and glaring at him defiantly, "That even if you did like me, or enjoy spending time with me, or whatever, that you won't do anything about it! When we talk about it, you walk off!"

"We ain't talkin'!" Daryl snapped back. "You're yellin'!" He opened his mouth to say more before closing his mouth, pressing his lips together so hard they turned white.

"It's not weak or stupid to admit that you like someone, Daryl." Andrea said softly, Dale's words rattling around her head. "It's not dumb to want to have someone to be with, some companionship. Especially now."

Daryl glared at her for several seconds but was clearly about to say something to her, and Andrea held her breath until the words came out. "So what if I did like ya?" He said softly. "So what if I said that I enjoyed spendin' time with ya, that I never had so much fun arguin' with someone? Ya think that would change anythin' between us?"

Andrea's gaze softened. "Of course it would." She said, surprised and not surprised that he would think that way. "Of course it would change something. It would change everything."

Daryl shook his head. "But would it?" He asked honestly, Merle's voice echoing in his head. "We'd go back to camp, hold hands, grab a milkshake, roll in the hay? What then? Fact is, when it boils down to it, you'll always be the lawyer and I'll always be white trash. Look at how Lori looked at us, automatically assumed the fight with Shane was my fault. She looks at me and sees what she saw in the past."

Andrea shook her head emphatically. "Lori can think what she wants." She insisted. "But the rest of us - you know that isn't true." She said insistently. "Give me one recent example where that's happened, where we've treated you that way. I learned more from you in the past three days when we were out here than I learned since this whole mess began." She opened her mouth to say more but Daryl's eyes had moved over her shoulder, behind her. "What? She asked, immediately reaching for the knife tucked at the back of her jeans. "Walker?"

A slow, genuine smile spread across Daryl's lips then. Not a smirk, an actual, for-real smile. It made him disarmingly attractive, even unshaved and covered in mud with scraggly, home cut hair, smelling like three days' camping in the woods.

"Turn around." He murmured, gesturing with his hand to something behind her.

"I don't-" Andrea's words died on her mouth when she saw the creature behind them. "Wow." She breathed, taking in the long snout, the tail, the ridge of fur an unusually-coloured eyes. "Is that a-"

"Told ya." Daryl said, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice. "I know what I saw."

Andrea felt her breath hitch as she watched the creature. It moved skittishly, obviously afraid of what its two human observers would do. As another, smaller Chupacabra appeared next to what was obviously its male mate, Andrea suddenly understood why, and she said, "And I told you: I believed you."

Daryl actually let out a small chuckle at that. "Well I'll be damned." He said, his gaze on the two animals ahead of them. "He got himself a girlfriend."

To be sure, the Chupacabra was not an attractive creature and if Daryl's description was to be believed, they were dangerous too. But as she looked at the male obviously nuzzling his mate, she realised that here, standing with Daryl Dixon in front of two mythical goat suckers, she might have stumbled across something that in their world at least was even more mythical than the goat sucker: hope. She had stumbled across hope. And ... not love, but something more than friendship, more than companionship. She had stumbled upon someone with whom she could be close, if they were both willing. And suddenly, now more than ever, she had to speak.

"Aside from your belief that we'd be too different, what's holding you back?" She asked honestly, her eyes boring into his. "Because ... Daryl, in the past forty-eight hours I've felt closer to you than I have to anyone in the past four months. And I know that you're a guy and you don't do 'feelings' or whatever, but ... I'm not asking for a ring and a white picket fence here." She said. "I'm just saying ... don't write the possibility of us off so soon because of who we used to be."

TBC …..


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Disclaimer: The Walking Dead belongs to Robert Kirkman and AMC. I own nothing. Just the epilogue after this, guys!

###

Daryl didn't come back to camp that night.

Andrea lay in her tent and listened for the rustle of boots on grass, for a knock at her tent door, for …. Anything. Something.

Don't write the possibility of us off so soon because of who we used to be – Andrea, you're an idiot, she thought as she closed her eyes and replayed their conversation in the woods, the one right before he'd told her to take a hike and leave him be. Why, why did she think that spilling her guts to Daryl Dixon was a good idea? Why did she think that just because they'd kissed twice and spent a night in the woods, she somehow knew him and thought that bombarding him with her tentative feelings was a good idea?

She rolled onto her back and grumbled. "Last time I ever listen to you, Dale."

The sun was slowly rising and Andrea hadn't yet been to sleep, but she emerged from her tent bleary-eyed and irritable. The heat hadn't abated any, and even the short walk from her tent to the watering hole left her dripping with sweat.

She wasn't surprised to find Carol there. Ever since Sophia came out of the barn, she had barely slept; many times Andrea had found the older woman wandering the camp, clutching Sophia's doll like a talisman. She always ended up at their small cemetery, though, slumped in front of the makeshift cross that marked her daughter's resting place.

"Don't go." Carol said as Andrea approached.

"I wasn't going to."

"Good." Carol barely glanced over her shoulder, her eyes fixed on the water catcher. "People think they need to treat me with kid gloves because of … Sophia. But we've all lost someone."

"Sophia was your daughter."

"Does that make my loss worse than yours?"

Andrea moved to stand next to Carol and began to splash her face. "Parents shouldn't outlive their children."

They washed in quiet for several minutes until Carol spoke again. "You look tired."

"I didn't get much sleep last night."

Carol gave her a small smile. "Daryl will come back, Andrea."

Andrea looked surprised. "I didn't realise anyone else noticed that he was missing."

"Of course I did." Carol said. "I noticed that you were missing, noticed Daryl went after you. He's a good man, Andrea. But I don't think I need to tell you, that, do I?"

Andrea felt a flush rise up her cheeks. "I don't think he'll be coming after me any time soon."

Carol tipped her head to one side and squinted against the harsh morning light. "What makes you say that?"

Andrea shuffled her feet, suddenly desperate to confide in someone. She thought back to that time at the quarry, where she had sat with Carol, Amy and Jacqui while they washed and shared what they had missed about their old lives, like four girlfriends. She looked at Carol again, her mind on that time, the only time when Ed had been alive where she had seen Carol smile. Did Carol want someone to confide in?

"We, uh … I said some things to him yesterday." She said. "Things that felt like they needed to be said at the time, but now I've said them …" She shook her head. "Whatever." She said, a nervous giggle escaping her mouth. "I seem to be making a habit of that: speaking without thinking."

"Maybe you're just saying what needs to be said."

"I don't think Daryl needed to hear what I had to say."

"Daryl needs to be loved, Andrea." Carol said. "He needs to be shown that he's a good man, that he's valued, appreciated – that he matters. He's never had that."

Andrea's mind flickered back to that morning, that sweaty morning three days ago when she and Daryl had stood in the forest and he had insisted that he saw a chupacabra. And she told him that she believed him, because she had. She did. And she just wanted the chance to show him that once more.

"We saw it." She blurted out. "The chupacabra, I mean. We found it, yesterday afternoon."

Carol wasn't looking at Andrea, however. Instead, her gaze was drawn to something beyond Andrea's shoulder, behind them. "I think you found something else, too." She said, and when Andrea turned around, she almost caught her breath as she saw Daryl walk out of the forest.

###

He looked the same: work pants and a plaid shirt, sweaty and dirty, a crossbow clung across his body along with a rope of dead squirrels. Her mind flickered to soft smiles over a camp fire and squirrel that tasted almost like chicken. Soft shoulders and gruff smiles and an overwhelming feeling of safety and security when she went to sleep. She swallowed a little. Where had he been?

He caught her as she was walking towards her tent. "You're up early. Plannin' another nature walk?"

Andrea didn't break stride as he approached her. "You're back." She said as she screwed the lid on her water canteen and wiped at her wet face.

"You thought I was gonna leave?" The look on his face clearly indicated that he thought so.

"Well, you're the one who walked off into the forest."

He crossed his arms and stared at her. "You're usin' your Lawyer Voice again." He said, following her towards her tent.

"Huh, well how about that." Andrea brushed aside the flap to her tent and stepped inside.

"You pissed at me?" Daryl followed her into her tent.

"No." Andrea busied herself with searching for clean clothes. Where was her last pair of clean panties?

"You still ain't lookin' at me."

"So you automatically think I'm pissed at you because I have other things to do with my day? Wow, Dixon, you think a lot of yourself." Jeans, she knew that she had a cleanish pair of jeans somewhere. They were her last pair.

Daryl's dirty hands appeared in her peripheral vision, halting her search for clothes. He was standing right next to her, watching her carefully, and she felt his gaze on the crown of her head.

"Andrea, if this is about what ya said yesterday-"

"Let's just forget it, alright?" She said, her cheeks flushing as he used her name. It was a stupid, impossibly teenaged thing to do but she couldn't help it. She didn't think he'd ever used her name; it sounded nice, the way he worked his mouth around the consonants.

Now he looked confused. "Ya follow me into the woods and give me some heartfelt speech and now ya want to forget it?"

Andrea shrugged and let her gaze meet his. He was still sweaty and dirty and still bore the brunt of his scrap with Shane, but his blue eyes were clear and were watching her with a curious, cautious expression.

"I just ... I tend to speak without thinking." She said finally. "It's dumb, really – makes me act crazy and say and do things I wouldn't normally do."

His lips curled upwards a little. "Isn't that when ya say things ya really mean?"

Andrea folded her arms across her chest and met his gaze once more. "You tell me." She said.

Daryl swallowed once, twice. He looked nervous. "I, uh …" His voice trailed off, and Andrea raised her eyebrows expectantly.

Daryl exhaled a long breath, and lifted his crossbow over his shoulder, setting it down on the floor. The string of squirrels and (she could now see) rabbits followed. When his wares were unloaded, Daryl returned his attention to Andrea.

"You're one stubborn woman, ya know." He said.

"Told you: you're the dictionary definition of hard work." Andrea muttered.

"Ya." Daryl gave her a small smile. "Been told that before."

He touched her then, reached out his hand and let his fingertips trail up her bare forearm, still folded across her body. His fingertips trailed fire up her bare skin and she could feel him trembling.

"Thought about what you said." He said. "What you said to me, last night in the woods."

"Which part?" Andrea's voice was suddenly husky.

"Ya don't know anythin' about me, Andrea." He said. "Ya only know what you're seen since we were stuck together after the CDC, which is what – two weeks at most? Ya don't know me and I don't know you. But you were right: I'm a stubborn bastard."

"You finally admit it." Andrea muttered.

"But so are you. We'd fight like hell, ya know. Rest of camp would hate it when we went at it. We did nothin' but bicker those two days we were out there."

Andrea blew out a deep breath and looked up at Daryl. He looked wired and about to bolt, but he hadn't, and she didn't think he was going to. She smiled a little. He was trying. Maybe that meant she could, too.

"Okay then." She said. "Maybe it's about time we got to know each other a little more?"

Daryl's cheeks went bright pink and his eyes darted to her bed. "Uh …." His gaze travelled down her body and she felt a flush of pure desire go through her when his lips parted. Obviously he liked what he saw.

"No!" She exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "Men."

"You're the one suggesting we get to know each other while we're standin' next to your bed. You keep usin' your Lawyer Voice and you might have a deal." His voice was a little huskier than usual.

Andrea gave him a mollifying look, before extending her hand. "Hi. I'm Andrea." She said.

He looked nonplussed. "What the hell you doin'?"

"Getting to know each other, like we should have done from the beginning."

He clearly wasn't getting it. "You shittin' me?"

She glared at him. "Do I look like I'm shitting you?"

He stared down at her hand. "Guess not."

She tried again. "Hi. I'm Andrea: former civil rights lawyer, sharpshooter and survivor of the zombie apocalypse."

Daryl tongued his cheek for a moment before taking her offered hand. "Daryl Dixon." He said. "Hunter, tracker, also a survivor of the zombie apocalypse."

Andrea smiled. "Wow. We only just met and we have something in common."

"Isn't that something?"

"Yup. You have any siblings?"

Daryl's face went dark, but he didn't shy away from her question. "A brother. Merle. Mean son of a bitch."

"Where is he?"

"Dead, missing or worse."

"See, that's two things we have in common." Andrea said. "My sister's dead too. Her name's Amy."

"Must have been hard."

"You have no idea."

He smirked. "You really think this is going to work?"

Andrea shrugged. "All I know is that for the first time in a long time, I want to live. I want to tell someone about my life, and hear about theirs." She paused then, taking a deep breath before she threw herself off the emotional ledge. "I want that person to be you."

Something flickered and yawned behind his blue eyes, and he smirked a little. "Ya want to know about Lucy, huh?"

"Lucy, Merle, your mom, dad: whoever." Andrea shrugged. "Tell me a story about your life; I don't care about the end."

###

"You know, you setting up your tent all the way out here – people will start to talk." Andrea said as she helped him assemble his tent.

"Let 'em. All they seem to do, anyway." Daryl said.

"Yeah. Was kinda nice, being out in the woods, away from all the drama."

"Ya got that right."

They assembled Daryl's tent in half the time it would usually take, and Andrea stretched out against the adjacent oak tree, closing her eyes and appreciating the meagre shade it brought.

"I can see why you parked yourself all the way out here." She said, fighting the urge to kick off her shoes and feel the grass beneath her feet.

Half-opening her eyes, she could see Dale and Carol appraising her from their own makeshift camp. Dale gave her a grin and a wave, and she waved back, her smile tentatively crossing her mouth. She didn't know where things with her and Daryl would go, only that she went into the woods searching for a chupacabra and some peace and quiet and found something else, something that she hadn't even know she was looking for until he offered her his hand and his crossbow and taught her how to kill a deer. Despite his efforts, he wasn't going to be easy to care about or even love. It wasn't until recently that she had begun to like him. But now she did, so she figured she'd done the hardest part.

"Penny for 'em?" He dropped down next to her, a pile of dry twigs in his hand.

Andrea tipped her head towards the RV and the makeshift camp. "Dale and Carol are spying on us." She could feel the blush begin to rise in her cheeks.

Daryl clearly caught it too, for he asked, "That a problem for ya?"

Andrea caught his gaze. "Not so much."

Acting on impulse, she leaned towards him and gently pressed her mouth to his. Her lips were teasing, gentle, almost experimental. She wasn't one for outward displays of affection and she guessed that Daryl certainly wasn't, but she just wanted a little taste.

He was surprised at her contact but certainly didn't try to push her away. Like hers, his lips were gentle and unsure, but they responded after several seconds, becoming rougher and more urgent the longer they kissed. When she eventually pulled away, they were both slightly breathless.

"What was that for?" His voice was husky and low.

"Just … wanted to." She said, giving him an embarrassed smile.

"Ya havin' one of those actin' without thinkin' moments?"

"Pretty much. Worked out okay so far, don't you think?"

He didn't say anything, just smirked and gestured that she light their makeshift fire.

###

The sun was setting across the valley as Andrea licked rabbit and squirrel fat off her fingers. "Mmmm that was good." She said, leaning back against the oak tree and letting the now-cool grass work between her bare toes. "Sure is beautiful." She murmured, her gaze on the slowly-setting sun and the reds and purples it unleashed across the land. "Where were we, when we camped out?"

Daryl's eyes shifted east and he pointed with a stray twig. "'bout ten, fifteen miles that way." He said. "There should be a ridge – ya can't see it now in the dark, but it's there. That's where we camped."

Andrea smiled, her gaze torn between the glorious sunset and the man whose face was gently illuminated by the fire. She didn't know how or when it had happened, or if either of them had been aware of it, but what had begun as a morning of tent assembly had become a date; a fully-fledged candlelit (or bonfire) dinner date.

"My mom and dad used to take us to this place, not far from our house." Andrea closed her eyes and let the memory wash over her. "This campsite, we went there all the time. It wasn't much but we used to fish and hike and me and dad would always cook whatever we caught; mom and Amy were so sick of fish dinners by the end of our vacations, but we'd always do the same thing, every year. Except for one year, we went on this historical tour of these old Civil War battlefields. My dad was a history nut and he dragged us to all these places." Her smile turned sad, then. "That was two years ago." She said, realisation dawning. "That was our last family vacation. Last summer I had to work last-minute, couldn't get away, they had to go without me." She looked down, unsure as to why she had just told him that, but that was what people did on dates, right? It had been so long, she couldn't remember how to be on one.

Daryl didn't say anything for a while, but when he did, his voice was husky and unsure and he kept his eyes on the campfire the whole time.

"When I was a kid, my mamma ... she was determined me an' Merle were gonna have better than she had, better than working some crappy drunk shack off the highway with no future. So she used to take us to the library, on her day off. I used to bitch about it at the time because I wanted to be out in the forest, playin' with Merle or my friends. My old man was never there, even after mamma ... and then Merle left ... bein' in the library made me feel close to her, meant I could go there when I didn't want to go home or into the woods."

Andrea looked down. Coming from a secure family, she could not imagine how hard it must have been for him to lose his mom. "Must have been hard." She said. Then, swallowing frantically, she asked, "Was the library where you met Lucy?"

He nodded, his gaze still fixed on the fire. "She was one of the assistants, worked there after school. Used to let me have way more books out on loan than she should have because she knew I didn't want to go home and couldn't afford to buy any." He swallowed thickly. "You remind me of her, a bit." He said. "Smart, took no shit. Took me awhile but I asked her out, went to the movie theatre outside town. Her folks … they didn't want us hangin' around each other." He gave her a wry, if impossibly sad, smirk. "Dixons were trash in our town, and Lucy wasn't trash. Anyway, she gets accepted to this fancy school up north, full scholarship. By then me and her … we'd been seein' each other a while, made her folks all kinds of crazy … I told her to go." He kicked at the fire with his boot. "Told her to go, get out of town, make somethin' of herself – she wasn't going to do that hangin' around our piece of shit home town."

Andrea bit her lip. "That must have been hard." All too easily could she imagine Daryl driving Lucy away. He was right, of course – it had been for the girl's own good, but she couldn't help but wonder at its own quiet tragedy. Another person who had left him, even if he had driven her away.

She wondered if Lucy had ever realised what Daryl had done that day, where harsh words and probably tears had been exchanged. She wondered if Lucy Sanders had survived the end of the world and was now sitting somewhere, looking up at the same night and talking about the boy from her home town who had used his harsh tongue and angry words to give her an opportunity away from the life they knew.

Daryl kept his eyes on the fire. "Must be a pretty anticlimactic story." He said, tossing errant twigs onto the fire. "Now I built it up so much. Shoulda just kept it to myself, kept ya guessin' awhile longer."

Andrea gave him a smile, their faces lit by the flames. "I'm glad you told me."

He stared at her long at hard. "She, uh … it's been a while since I did this." He gestured to their bodies, their words. "Guess I fucked it up then too, huh?"

"You acted in Lucy's best interests back then." Andrea said. "She probably didn't see it at the time but I bet she does now. And you aren't fucking it up now - why would you think that?"

When no answer was forthcoming, she stood up and held out her hand. He stared at her questioningly for a few seconds, but took it, his palms damp and large, encasing hers. With a little tug, she walked him towards his tent, taking care to douse the fire, close the flap and collect their weapons as they went.

It was different to what she was expecting. Not that she had put a whole lot of thought into what sex with Daryl would be like, but she had expected something other than the heated touches and soft moans against her flesh, the way his toes curled as she kissed the skin that covered his femoral artery and listened to the way his heart pumped blood around his body. She hadn't been expecting haltingly unsure touches at first until they became a little more sure of each other or the way his sweat would taste on her skin. She certainly hadn't been expecting the way her head would find it's way onto his shoulder and he would move his arm to accommodate her, just as he had when they slept in that oak tree.

In fact, the only thing she had been expecting was the way she felt secure in Daryl's arms, the same way she had when they fell asleep together. Regardless of what would happen next between them, she knew that Daryl would always keep her safe. And in their world, that kind of security was rarer than a chupacabra.

TBC …..


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen: Epilogue

Disclaimer: The Walking Dead belongs to Robert Kirkman and AMC. I just wrote this for fun with no copyright infringement intended.

Author's note: so this is the last chapter now. I'm fully aware that its become a bit flufftastic, but really – who doesn't need a bit of fluff in their life?

###

"What made you change your mind?" Andrea's voice sounded husky against Daryl's bare skin.

"Change my mind 'bout what?" He sounded sleepy.

"About this. Us."

He shifted his weight and his body, taking care that he didn't jostle her too much. "Thought 'bout what you said." His voice was absorbed by most of her hair, which was damp at the ends with sweat. "Realised I'd never had so much fun arguing with someone as I had with you. Figured that since we both liked to argue and we're stubborn like mules, might as well do it together."

"Coming from you, that's positively romantic."

###

Carl Grimes was by nature an inquisitive kid. Call it temperament, poor parenting, lack of stimulus – whatever. He liked to listen and watch and his parents had never bothered to call him on it.

Which was how he found himself outside Daryl Dixon's tent as the sun rose.

Carl didn't mean to peer, he really didn't. But once he did, he couldn't stop. And he wasn't stupid: he'd heard the way the others talked about Daryl and Andrea, had seen the way they looked at each other since they came out of the forest. Even so, he didn't plan on spying on them. It just worked out that way. And Daryl's tent had a clear plastic window that was just in line with his eyes, so it was like the tent was encouraging Carl's behaviour.

He didn't think anything of it, at first glance: Daryl was asleep, and that was cool. Even Daryl Dixon needed rest.

Carl just didn't realise that he wasn't alone.

Andrea was in there with him.

They were naked; that much Carl could tell. Their clothes were all over the tent, like they'd taken them off in a hurry, and their legs were bare and there were four of them, even though Carl couldn't tell whose were Andrea's and whose were Daryl's until he looked real hard and saw that Andrea's feet were a lot smaller than Daryl's and curled beneath his, like his feet were protecting hers. Their top halves were naked too, although Andrea was laying half-on top of Daryl and his arms hid everything else. Andrea had this pretty smile on her face, even though she was asleep. Daryl looked scary, but he always looked scary. This time though … it was like the anger had gone from his face.

Carl ran back to the RV where he found his mom washing dishes.

"Mom!" Carl exclaimed as he ran towards Lori. "I saw Daryl and Andrea in Daryl's tent! They were asleep!"

A smile that Carl didn't understand twitched around Lori's mouth. "Well it's okay to fall asleep, honey." She joked. "Even for Daryl."

"But they were in bed!" Carl insisted. "They were naked!"

"Now, Carl!" Lori scolded. "You know you shouldn't say stuff like that, and you shouldn't be looking through other people's windows!"

Carl didn't get it – why was he being scolded for telling the truth? "But mom – I know what I saw!"

FIN.


End file.
